Since 2007, the MENASA (Middle East/North Africa/South Asia) houses one of the most important art fairs of the world, the Art Dubai. The event has become a mark for the prosperity of the region’s contemporary art community. The 2012 edition was a success, Art Dubai welcomed 22,500 visitors – including 75 international museums groups – and hosted 75 galleries from 32 countries.

Save the date! The next edition of Art Dubai will take place at March 20-23, 2013, and the location will be once again the famous Madinat Jumeirah. The organizers are really looking forward to receive the visitors and besides the galleries, the fair’s extensive programme will include commissioned projects and performances, artists’ and curators’ residencies, educational workshops, the unveiling of works by the winners of the annual Abraaj Capital Art Prize and the critically acclaimed Global Art Forum.

Like in London, at the London Design week that takes place in September, in Dubai there’s the Art Week that includes Sikka Art Fair (organised by the Dubai Culture & Arts Authority, and taking place in Al Bastakiya), Design Days Dubai, and a range of contemporary art and design events, major museum shows, and new gallery exhibitions and artists’ projects, taking place each March and is in the middle of these initiatives that the Art Dubai happens. Art Week positions the Gulf as a place of artistic production and home to multiple cultural centres.