MENA Artists Are Having a Market Moment That’s Being Built to Last

The art world’s perception of the MENA region (Middle East and North Africa)—and especially of the Gulf—tends to gravitate toward the concentration of wealth and the scale of cultural investment, particularly the proliferation of internationally branded museums and high-profile partnerships backed by local governments as part of broader efforts to move beyond oil-dependent economies and reposition these countries as global destinations for business and pleasure. Yet in the Gulf, this is anything but a sudden phenomenon.