Abu Dhabi opens Middle East’s largest natural history museum
Also this week: Kraken Dubai, Sotheby’s major Collectors’ Week and fresh art openings
Welcome back to Al-Monitor Dubai.
Abu Dhabi’s Natural History Museum has finally opened its doors, marking a historic moment years in the making. The museum offers artifacts that span millions of years. Also in Abu Dhabi, Sotheby’s will stage its first ever Abu Dhabi Collectors’ Week at the beginning of December, showcasing $1 billion dollars’ worth of art and luxury objects. In Dubai, a new contemporary art space, Dom Art Projects, opens this week, and an exhibition by Iraqi artist Miramar Al Nayyar explores how energy and light can become matter on and off the canvas.
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Happy reading,
Rebecca
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1. Leading the week: The Natural History Museum opens in Abu Dhabi
A view of “March of the Triceratops” at the Natural History Museum. Courtesy of the Natural History Museum
The Middle East’s largest natural history museum — which celebrates 13.8 billion years of science and discovery, with a special focus on the Arabian region — has opened in Abu Dhabi. Located in Saadiyat Cultural District on Saadiyat Island, the Natural History Museum features two museum firsts: two Tyrannosaurus rex skeletons displayed together and an unprecedented herd of five massive sauropod dinosaurs. On Nov. 21, Abu Dhabi's crown prince and chairman of the Abu Dhabi Executive Council, Sheikh Khaled bin Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, officially inaugurated the Natural History Museum Abu Dhabi, a landmark institution that aims to reinforce the UAE’s leadership in culture and scientific research.
“Natural History Museum Abu Dhabi is a place where knowledge meets wonder,” said Mohamed Khalifa Al Mubarak, chairman of Abu Dhabi’s Department of Culture and Tourism, in the opening press release. “The museum offers a different perspective of the story of life on Earth, framed for the first time through an Arabian lens. Bringing a new dimension to our cultural story, we are building institutions that inspire curiosity, foster learning, and connect us to the bigger questions about our world and our future, while reinforcing our conviction in culture as a strategic force for shared progress. Understanding our planet's past helps us protect its future, and that is the foundation of what we have built here.”
The artifacts on display span the creation of the universe and the story of life on earth, and they offer a special focus on the natural history of the Emirates and the wider region. The museum’s galleries take visitors back in time to seven million years ago, when the Arabian Peninsula’s climate was very different and was characterized by verdant, lush landscape that was roamed by now-extinct animals, including a giant elephant with four tusks, which is also on display.
A highlight is one of the galleries displaying Tyrannosaurus rexes locked in battle over the carcass of a Triceratops, marking the first time two fossil T. rexes have been exhibited in such a dynamic scene. They include 67-million-year-old “Stan,” one of the best-preserved examples of a T. rex ever discovered. Visitors can see fossil evidence of this ancient battle, including bite marks on the Triceratops.
The museum also serves as a center for research and discovery, with onsite facilities for scientific research.
Location: Saadiyat Cultural District, Saadiyat Island
Find more information here.
2. Word on the street: Kraken Dubai
A view of a dish at Kraken Dubai. Courtesy of Kraken
Craving fresh seafood? Head to newly opened Kraken Dubai, where fish is caught locally and the produce served is largely homegrown. The restaurant is helmed by Chef Gregoire Berger, 2022 Gault & Millau Chef of the Year, who was formerly the chef at Italian restaurant Ossiano at Atlantis, The Palm. Enjoy an open kitchen within a sleek, upscale ambiance. Be sure to try Kraken’s 10-course tasting menu, which includes oysters from Fujairah served with tasty jalapeno granita and pickled cucumber, a tuna tartare pizza and crispy shrimp chicharron, among other delicacies. The menu also offers octopus tacos, blue crab soup and yellowtail tuna pizza.
Location: Al Wasl Road, Dubai
Find more information here.
3. Dubai diary
A 1991 McLaren on sale during Sotheby’s inaugural Collectors’ Week in Abu Dhabi. Courtesy of Sotheby’s
- $1 billion dollars’ worth of art at Sotheby’s Abu Dhabi Collectors’ Week
Global auction house Sotheby’s will stage its inaugural Collectors’ Week in Abu Dhabi, featuring auctions, private sale opportunities, exhibitions and a special program of talks and masterclasses co-hosted by special guests. Staged in collaboration with the Abu Dhabi Investment Office, the week will bring together, in exhibits or on sale, over $1 billion of fine art and luxury items, marking a major milestone for Sotheby’s and Abu Dhabi’s luxury retail landscape.
"Abu Dhabi’s dynamic economy and bold vision for its future is a natural fit for an innovative, forward-thinking business like Sotheby’s, in addition to sharing a passion for impossibly rare collectibles," Katia Nounou Boueiz, head of Sotheby's UAE and deputy chairwoman of Sotheby's Middle, East told Al-Monitor.
Among the $150 million in luxury offerings to be presented across five auctions on Dec. 5 are standout items, many of which have never appeared at auction before. Among the highlights is what was likely Gustav Klimt's final portrait, which sold for $108 million in 2003, becoming, at the time, the most valuable work ever sold at auction in Europe; Banksy's iconic shredded “Girl Without Balloon,” which made headlines around the world; one of the finest Rembrandt drawings to ever appear at auction; four rare high-performance bicycles, including Tadej Pogacar's Tour de France-winning Colnago, and a bike ridden by Eddy Merckx, who is widely accepted as being the greatest rider in the history of the sport, and another Colnago ridden by Joao Almeida. There will also be the first complete set of Patek Philippe Star Caliber 2000 ever offered at auction.
"Buyers across the UAE have been engaging with both our art and luxury categories for a few years now and in increasingly large numbers. Many enter the market early in their collecting journeys — 38% of new UAE buyers are under 40 — and luxury often serves as an accessible and compelling entry point for them and from which art collecting can derive. The luxury market in particular has room to grow in Abu Dhabi and across the region, as wearing luxury — one of the greatest pleasures of collecting items such as fine watches and jewelry — is safe and commonplace in the region," said Boueiz.
Date: Dec. 2-5
Location: St Regis Saadiyat Island Resort, Saadiyat Island, Abu Dhabi
Find more information here.
- Dom Art Projects opens in Dubai
Marking the latest private art institution in Dubai, Dom Art Projects will open its doors this week with a series of exhibitions, live performances and artist talks. The contemporary art space serves as “home,” or “dom” in Russian, for those who love art and culture.
Founded by Alisa Bagdonaite and Anna Pumpyanskaya, Dom Art Projects will showcase the works of emerging and mid-career artists through exhibitions as part of year-round programing, including artist-led workshops, and talks across its exhibition space and artist residency studios. There is also an art and culture bookshop.
Date: Nov. 27-29
Location: Al Khayat Avenue, Al Quoz, Dubai
Find more information here.
- Hujra — حُجرة by Miramar Al Nayyar
This evocative solo presentation by Iraqi artist Miramar Al Nayyar, curated by Abeer Seikaly, marks Dubai-based Tabari Artspace’s first exhibition in Alserkal Avenue. The ethereal works on show explore how light can become matter and the energetic flow can transmute onto the canvas. The exhibition stages a dialogue between Nayyar’s process and Seikaly’s curatorial approach, reflecting a parallel inquiry into how inner states of consciousness can become material forms on the body and in space. The show offers a meditative look at states of consciousness and how they can be interpreted through art.
Date: Until Dec. 1
Location: Alserkal Avenue, Warehouse 81
Find more information here.
4. Book of the week: ‘The Touch of Light’
Emirati novelist Nadia Najar was shortlisted this year for the International Prize for Arabic Fiction for her book “The Touch of Light.” The book’s main character, Noura, is blind and uses an electronic application to explain the content of photographs. The novel charts the personal story of Noura’s family members, often via her use of the device to view family photographs, within the context of the history of the Arabian Gulf before the discovery of oil in Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates.
5. View from Dubai
An installation at the newly opened Natural History Museum Abu Dhabi reflecting life during the Cenozoic period. Courtesy of the Natural History Museum Abu Dhabi
Evidence from geological and fossil records confirms that the Arabian Peninsula had a verdant, lush landscape during multiple humid phases throughout the Cenozoic period, dating back seven to eight million years ago. This particular period is reflected in displays at the newly opened Natural History Museum in Abu Dhabi.
6. By the numbers
- The history of the United Arab Emirates can be traced back to 6,000 BCE.
- Islamic civilization flourished in the Gulf region during the Umayyad Caliphate, from 661CE to 750 CE.
- At its peak during the 20th century, the pearling industry was a major economic driver for the Trucial States (prior to becoming the UAE), contributing around 95% of its income during the 1900s and employing around 80,000 men in the Gulf, with 22,000 from the Trucial States alone.