Rubaiaya Qatar, a new quadrennial that will open its inaugural edition at various venues across Doha beginning November 21, has announced more than 120 artists that will participate in the new initiative, presented by Qatar Museums in collaboration with ALRIWAQ Arts + Architecture.
Unlike most other recurring art exhibitions, Rubaiaya Qatar will be made up of three separate shows at three different institutions and will also include a public art component.
“The inauguration of Rubaiya Qatar marks a defining moment in this change, with Doha as the stage on which contemporary art from our region and beyond is presented to the world,” Sheikha Alanood Al Thani, the quadrennial’s director, said in a statement. “Foregrounding non-Western perspectives, fostering ambitious new commissions and embedding deep ecological and historical research into its curatorial core, Rubaiya Qatar offers a fresh paradigm for international exhibitions of contemporary art.”
The lead exhibition will be “Unruly Waters,” which borrows its names from a book by historian Sunil Amrith. It will be curated by Tom Eccles, executive director of the Center for Curatorial Studies and the Hessel Museum of Art at Bard College; Ruba Katrib, chief curator and director of curatorial affairs at MoMA PS1; Shabbir Hussain Mustafa, chief curator at the Singapore Art Museum; and Mark Rappolt, editor-in-chief of ArtReview. It will be staged primarily at ALRIWAQ Arts + Architecture, with some works on view at Museum of Islamic Art (MIA) and in MIA Park.
Around 54 artists and collectives will feature in “Unruly Waters,” with 30 of them presenting new commissions. They include Lawrence Abu Hamdan, Farah Al Qasimi, Meriem Bennani, Cao Fei, Nicholas Galanin, Shilpa Gupta, Saodat Ismailova, Ayoung Kim, Oscar Murillo, New Red Order, Selma Selman, and Wael Shawky.
“Establishing the framework for Rubaiya Qatar as a whole, the lead exhibition, Unruly Waters, is planetary in scope but highly specific in the geographies it explores,” the four curators said in a statement. “The artists it presents trace trade winds, monsoon rhythms, ocean currents, and digital communication networks—from ancient sea routes to the World Wide Web—to redefine ‘globalism’ through ecology and human movement, understanding it as a product of nature as much as of commerce. This specificity is true above all in the exhibition’s treatment of Qatar, with objects and artworks representing the nation’s place in past, present, and future global connections.”
Accompanying “Unruly Waters” is “Our Common Currents” at Katara QM Gallery. Curated by Rubaiya Qatar’s acting head of curatorial affairs Lina Patmali, the exhibition will respond to “Unruly Waters” and include work by 12 artists, four of which are commissions.
“In Our Common Currents, the artists featured explore how interconnected we are with the natural world,” Patmali said in a statement. “With a starting point being Qatar, the artworks presented have created connections with different geographical contexts.”
Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art will present “Seething Sea,” which will curated by Qatar Museums curator and Mathaf cofounder Wadha Al-Aqeedi, with assistant curator Loulwah Kutbi. Taking its name a line in the Qur’an, the exhibition will feature some 53 artists and collectives and over 80 works from Mathaf’s collections. The participating artists all have ties to the Middle East and include Hassan Sharif, Dia Azzawi, Sophia Al-Maria, Charles Hossein-Zenderoudi, and Monira Al Qadiri.
“For millennia, the people of the Gulf lived from the sea and understood it through faith and folklore,” Al-Aqeedi said in a statement. “This exhibition explores that relationship through the work of three generations of artists hailing from every shore of the Gulf, who have returned to the sea again and again: to experiment, to document, to celebrate, and now to mourn. What visitors will find is a reminder of all the sea has given, and a warning of impending doom.”
Finally, Rubaiaya Qatar will feature at least seven public art installations, including Rirkrit Tiravanija’s untitled 2025 (no bread no ashes), which debuted at MIA Park last year, as well as a work by Ibrahim Mahama made for the forthcoming Art Mill Museum and a mural at the National Museum of Qatar metro station by Minerva Cuevas.
In a statement, Sheikha Reem Al Thani, the deputy CEO of ALRIWAQ Arts + Architecture, Public Art, and Rubaiya Qatar, said, “Through ambitious commissions, exhibitions, public art and public programmes, Rubaiya Qatar creates opportunities for lasting collaboration and artistic innovation while reinforcing Qatar’s role as a place where ideas, perspectives and cultural practices converge. More than a platform for presenting art, Rubaiya Qatar is an investment in cultural production, international exchange and the relationships that will shape future generations of artists, thinkers and audiences.”
The artist lists for each exhibition follow below.
“Unruly Waters”
Curators: Tom Eccles, Ruba Katrib, Shabbir Hussain Mustafa, and Mark Rappolt
November 21–April 30
Bani Abidi (Pakistan)
Lawrence Abu Hamdan (Lebanon / UK)
Yousef Ahmad (Qatar)
Khalid Albaih (Sudan)
Kamal Aljafari (Palestine)
Sophia Al-Maria (Qatar)
Farah Al Qasimi (UAE)
Majid Al-Remaihi (Qatar)
Shaima Al-Tamimi (Yemen)
Meriem Bennani (Morocco)
Mohamed Bourouissa (France / Algeria)
Liu Chuang (China)
Ade Darmawan (Indonesia)
Alia Farid (Puerto Rico / Kuwait)
Simone Fattal (Lebanon)
Cao Fei (China)
Nicholas Galanin (United States)
Shilpa Gupta (India)
Hit Man Gurung (Nepal)
Mayar Hamdan (Palestine)
Sohrab Hura (India)
Saodat Ismailova (Uzbekistan)
Naiza Khan (UK / Pakistan)
Saba Khan (Pakistan)
Ayoung Kim (South Korea)
Charles Lim (Singapore)
Imaad Majeed (Sri Lanka)
Diego Marcon (Italy)
Naeem Mohaiemen (Bangladesh)
Yuko Mohri (Japan)
Manny Montelibano (Philippines)
Jean Katambayi Mukendi (DRC)
Oscar Murillo (Colombia)
Hira Nabi (Pakistan)
Dala Nasser (Lebanon)
New Red Order (United States)
Ho Tzu Nyen (Singapore)
Lydia Ourahmane (Algeria)
Pratchaya Phinthong (Thailand)
Tan Pin Pin (Singapore)
Khalil Rabah (Palestine)
Sheelasha Rajbhandari (Nepal)
Araya Rasdjarmrearnsook (Thailand)
Selma Selman (Bosnia and Herzegovina)
Priya Sen (India)
Wael Shawky (Egypt)
Ahlam Shibli (Palestine)
Marina Tabassum (Bangladesh)
Newsha Tavakolian (Iran)
Nathalie Vairac (France / Senegal)
Adrian van Wyk (South Africa)
Munem Wasif (Bangladesh)
He Xiangyu (China)
Ayman Zedani (Saudi Arabia)
“Our Common Currents”
Curator: Lina Patmali
November 22–April 30
Taloi Havini (Australia / Bougainville)
Latent Community (Greece)
Miguel Fernández de Castro (Mexico)
Artcom Platform (Kazakhstan)
Nadia Belerique (Canada)
Basim Magdy (Egypt)
Aziz Motawa (Kuwait)
Joseph Ntensibe (Uganda)
KABINDA (Former Belgian Congo)
Olafur Eliasson (Iceland / Denmark)
Barbara Chase-Riboud (France / US)
Lala Rukh (Pakistan)
“Seething Sea”
Curators: Wadha Al-Aqeedi, with Loulwah Kutbi
November 22–April 30
Abbas Al-Mahroos (Bahrain)
Abdul Karim Al-Bosta (Bahrain)
Abdul Qader Al-Rais (United Arab Emirates)
Abdulhalim Radwi (Saudi Arabia)
Abdulkarim Al-Orrayed (Bahrain)
Abdullah Al-Muharraqi (Bahrain)
Abdulrasoul Salman (Kuwait)
Abeer Al-Kuwari (Qatar)
Ahmed Abdul Ridha Saleh (Kuwait)
Ali Dasmal Al-Kuwari (Qatar)
Ali Sharif (Qatar)
Ali Yahya (Iraq)
Alymamah Rashed (Kuwait)
Amna Al-Baker (Qatar)
Bahman Dadkhah (Iran)
Balqees Fakhro (Bahrain)
Basmah Felemban (Saudi Arabia)
Charles Hossein-Zenderoudi (Iran)
Dalal Al-Obaidi (Kuwait)
Dia Azzawi (Iraq)
Essa Al-Ghanem (Qatar)
Essa Al-Malki (Qatar)
Faisal Samra (Saudi Arabia)
Fuad Al-Futaih (Yemen)
Gholamhossein Nami (Iran)
Hamid Al-Attar (Iraq)
Hassan Sharif (United Arab Emirates)
Hisham Zubari (Bahrain)
Hossein Kashian (Iran)
Iran Darroudi (Iran)
Issa Saqer (Kuwait)
Jasem AlSanea (Kuwait)
Jassim Zaini (Qatar)
Khaled Al-Rahhal (Iraq)
Khalifa Al-Qattan (Kuwait)
Mahmoud Sabri (Iraq)
Mahood Ahmad (Iraq)
Majid Hilal Al-Naimi (Qatar)
Manal AlDowayan (Saudi Arabia)
Massoud Arabshahi (Iran)
Mohammed Fadhil (Oman)
Mohammed Ghani Hikmet (Iraq)
Mohammed Jassim Al-Jaidah (Qatar)
Monira Al Qadiri (Kuwait)
Moosa Omar Al-Zadjali (Oman)
Nasser Ovissi (Iran)
Pouran Jinchi (Iran)
Rafa Nasiri (Iraq)
Salem Mathkour (Iraq)
Sophia Al-Maria (Qatar)
Suad Al-Attar (Iraq)
Tamader Al-Sultan (Qatar)
Wafika Sultan Al-Essa (Qatar)
Public Art Installations
November 21–April 30
Rirkrit Tiravanija (Thailand)
Jitish Kallat (India)
Ibrahim Mahama (Ghana) for the future Art Mill Museum
Lubna Chowdhary (UK) intervention at the Barzan Towers
Minerva Cuevas (Mexico) mural at the National Museum of Qatar metro station
Shaikha Hala Al Khalifa (Bahrain)
Nazgol Ansarinia (Iran)