Skip to main content

Art Here 2025

Shadows

Department of Culture and Tourism – Abu Dhabi

Louvre Abu Dhabi and Swiss watchmaking brand Richard Mille return for the fifth edition of their groundbreaking annual exhibition and competition, Art Here and the Richard Mille Art Prize, deepening their shared commitment to showcasing contemporary art from the region and beyond within the global creative landscape.

Set to open under Louvre Abu Dhabi’s iconic dome on 11 October and running until 28 December, Art Here 2025, conceptualised by guest curator Sophie Mayuko Arni, invited artists to respond to the theme 'Shadows', a concept exploring the interplay between light and absence, visibility and concealment, and the layered dimensions of memory, identity, and transformation. Reflecting the richness of regional creativity, this year’s edition welcomed over 400 proposals from artists based in the GCC and Japan, along with artists from the MENA region with a GCC connection.

11 October - 28 December 2025

Coming soon

Selected Artists

Hamra Abbas

Ahmad Alaqra

YOKOMAE et BOUAYAD

Ryoichi Kurokawa

Jumairy

Rintaro Fuse

Curatorial statement

“In Shadow, We Discover”
– Sophie Mayuko Arni

“Such is our thinking – we find beauty not in the thing itself but in the patterns of shadows, the light and darkness, that one thing against another creates.”[1]
[1] Jun’ichiro Tanizaki, In Praise of Shadows, 1977. Trans. Thomas J. Harper and Edward G. Seidensticker. London: Vintage, 2001, 46.

Read more

Guest Curator’s Biography

Sophie Mayuko Arni is a Swiss-Japanese curator and editor based in the Arabian Gulf, working across site-specific exhibitions, public art, and digital publishing. She is the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Global Art Daily, a platform overseeing the publication of biannual e-issues archiving the Gulf’s contemporary art scenes in a global context. In parallel to her editorial activities, her curatorial work aims to connect inter-Asian geographies with shared visions of architecture, traditions, consumer culture, and technology. Most recently, she was part of the curatorial team of Noor Riyadh’s fourth edition “Light Years Apart” (2024), curated “The Big Flat Now” at Dubai Festival City Mall (2023), Lamya Gargash’s solo show “Isthmus” at The Third Line, Dubai (2023), “Gravitation” by Jukan Tateisi, Shōei Matsuda, and Takeshi Yasura at SRR Project Space, Tokyo (2023), and "East-East: UAE meets Japan Vol.5: Atami Blues" for Atami Art Grant, Atami (2022). She holds a B.A. in Art & Art History from NYU Abu Dhabi and an MPhil in Arts Studies and Curatorial Practices from the Graduate School of Global Arts, Tokyo University of the Arts.

Guest Curator’s Biography
Department of Culture and Tourism – Abu Dhabi