The Third Line

The Third Line The Third Line is a Dubai based contemporary art gallery. Represented artists include: Abbas Akhavan, Ala Ebtekar, Amir H.

Founded in 2005, The Third Line is a Dubai-based gallery that represents contemporary artists locally, regionally, and internationally. With over 19 years of dedicated commitment to the arts, it has become a pioneering platform for established talent and emerging voices from the region and its diaspora, building a dynamic program that explores the diversity of practices in the region. In addition

to its exhibitions, The Third Line engages in the production of art publications in English and Arabic and hosts numerous non-profit, alternative programs that add to the discourse on art, film, music, and literature in the region. Fallah, Anuar Khalifi, Bady Dalloul, Farah Al Qasimi, Farhad Moshiri, Fouad Elkoury, Hassan Hajjaj, Hayv Kahraman, Huda Lutfi, Joana Hadjithomas & Khalil Joreige, Jordan Nassar, Kamran Samimi, Laleh Khorramian, Lamya Gargash, Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian, Nima Nabavi, Pouran Jinchi, Rana Begum, Sahand Hesamiyan, Sara Naim, Sarah Awad, Shirin Aliabadi, Slavs and Tatars, Sophia Al Maria, Tarek Al-Ghoussein, yasiin bey, and Youssef Nabil.

Sophia Al-Maria (sxphix_xl_mxrix) in ‘New Humans: Memories of the Future,’ a group exhibition at New Museum (New Museu...
28/08/2026

Sophia Al-Maria (sxphix_xl_mxrix) in ‘New Humans: Memories of the Future,’ a group exhibition at New Museum (New Museum), inaugurating its expanded building.

On view until 31 August 2026
📍New Museum, New York, NY, USA

‘New Humans’ explores artists’ enduring preoccupation with what it means to be human in the face of sweeping technological changes. The exhibition traces a diagonal history of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries through the work of more than 150 international artists, writers, scientists, architects, and filmmakers, highlighting key moments when dramatic technological and social changes spurred new conceptions of humanity and new visions for its possible futures.

The exhibition is curated by Massimiliano Gioni, Edlis Neeson Artistic Director; Gary Carrion-Murayari, Kraus Family Senior Curator; Vivian Crockett, Allen and Lola Goldring Curator; and Madeline Weisburg, Senior Assistant Curator; with Calvin Wang, Curatorial Assistant. With thanks to Lexington Davis, former Curatorial Fellow; Laura Hakel, former ISLAA Curatorial Fellow; Clara von Turkovich, former ISLAA Curatorial Fellow; and Ian Wallace, former Curatorial Assistant.

Image: Exhibition view: New Humans: Memories of the Future, 2026. New Museum, New York. Courtesy New Museum. Photo: Dario Lasagni

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Cast in silver-painted resin and arranged in a downward cascade, the hands in ‘Offering the Silver Hand’ (2008) by Huda ...
26/08/2026

Cast in silver-painted resin and arranged in a downward cascade, the hands in ‘Offering the Silver Hand’ (2008) by Huda Lutfi (Huda Lutfi) evoke the many real-life hands that sustain and shape everyday life. They may also recall the Hamsa, a protective symbol widely used across the MENASA region to ward off harm. As part of Lutfi’s broader exploration of how the female body is framed, circulated, and imagined within contemporary Egyptian culture, the installation transforms the hand into a monument to women’s labor, care, and resilience.

The work is presented in ‘Manifold Gestures,’ an online group exhibition that visits The Third Line’s archive, looking at how contemporary artists continue to use the hand, and its manifold gestures, to negotiate questions of agency, labor, relation, and memory. On view until 5 September 2026.

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Image: Huda Lutfi, Offering The Silver Hand, 2008, Synthetic Resin Hands, Silver Paint and Text, 25 x 10 x 10 cm (each)
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Lutfi (Huda Lutfi) transforms mannequins into uncanny figures whose raised arms suggest protest, or aspiration. Yet their hands have been severed, complicating any straightforward reading of these gestures. The absence of hands draws attention to the body’s capacity to act, while also questioning the ways female bodies are shaped, constrained, and represented. The missing legs are turned into roots, grounding the female body in nature and evoking an intimate, almost primordial connection between the two.

The work is presented in ‘Manifold Gestures,’ an online group exhibition that visits The Third Line’s archive, looking at how contemporary artists continue to use the hand, and its manifold gestures, to negotiate questions of agency, labor, relation, and memory. On view until 5 September 2026.

Tap the link in our bio to view the online exhibition.

Image: Huda Lutfi, Roots, 2016, Mixed media, 71.5 x 121.5 x 1.5 cm (framed) (Detail)
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Made in memory of Lutfi’s (Huda Lutfi) late mother, a seamstress, ‘The Seven-legged Demon o

Works by Joana Hadjithomas & Khalil Joreige (Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige), Anuar Khalifi (Anuar Khalifi), and...
25/08/2026

Works by Joana Hadjithomas & Khalil Joreige (Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige), Anuar Khalifi (Anuar Khalifi), and the late Tarek Al-Ghoussein at ‘In Absence and in Presence,’ a group exhibition at Aranya Art Center (Aranya Art Center), featuring over 70 works from the Sharjah Art Foundation Collection (Sharjah Art Foundation).

On view until 30 August 2026
📍Aranya Art Center, Guangzhou, China

In ‘Absence and in Presence’ charts the ways in which land can be reimagined, redefined and reclaimed through the work of artists from West Asia, South Asia, Africa and its diaspora. Taking its title from Egyptian artist, poet, and writer Ahmed Morsi, whose multidisciplinary practice has long engaged with questions of displacement and the persistence of place, the exhibition unfolds through thematic constellations that explore the interrelations among land, the people who inhabit it, and the imagination that animates it.

The exhibition is curated by Hoor Al Qasimi (Hoor Al-Qasimi حور القاسمي) and Damien Zhang (z³) with May Alqaydi and Souraya Kreidieh, as well as Li Fangwen and Li Xinyang.

Installation view: “In Absence and in Presence: Works from the Sharjah Art Foundation Collection”, Aranya Art Center Guangzhou, March 22 - August 30, 2026, Photography Liu Xiangli.

Artwork Image:
Joana Hadjithomas & Khalil Joreige, ISMYRNA, 2016, Single-channel HD video, 50‘.

Anuar Khalifi, Talwin and Tamkin, 2022, Acrylic on Canvas, 190 x 135 cm (each).

Tarek Al-Ghoussein, Untitled 12 (DII Series), 2009.

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Pouran Jinchi’s ‘Untitled (1)’ is made through countless scratches on multiple layers of graphite paper. The marks evoke...
24/08/2026

Pouran Jinchi’s ‘Untitled (1)’ is made through countless scratches on multiple layers of graphite paper. The marks evoke Persian scripts without resolving into specific words. Inspired by ‘The Blind Owl,’ a major literary work by Sadegh Hedayat that was banned in Iran for its fixation with death, the illegible yet insistent traces of the hand open up the work to intuitions about life, making, and death, while respecting the opacity of the artist.

The work is presented in ‘Manifold Gestures,’ an online group exhibition that visits The Third Line’s archive, looking at how contemporary artists continue to use the hand, and its manifold gestures, to negotiate questions of agency, labor, relation, and memory. On view until 5 September 2026.

Tap the link in our bio to view the online exhibition.

Pouran Jinchi is an Iranian-American artist whose abstract, calligraphy-based work bridges traditional Islamic calligraphy and Western abstraction. Trained as a classical calligrapher in Iran, her work is held in collections including the Met, the Brooklyn Museum, and the Smithsonian.
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Fouad Elkoury, Dendera, 1990A young man’s stretched hand meets a beam of light streaming in from an opening. He is stand...
21/08/2026

Fouad Elkoury, Dendera, 1990

A young man’s stretched hand meets a beam of light streaming in from an opening. He is standing inside the Dendera Temple, an ancient Egyptian site. Facing him is a façade brimming with scripts, all inscribed by the hands of those who lived thousands of years ago. The man’s hand and arm, enveloped in a gentle halo, honors an extraordinary moment of encounter between him and the many souls of the past, inviting reflections on the passage of time and our relationship with (im)penetrable pasts.

The work is presented in ‘Manifold Gestures,’ an online group exhibition that visits The Third Line’s archive, looking at how contemporary artists continue to use the hand, and its manifold gestures, to negotiate questions of agency, labor, relation, and memory. On view until 5 September 2026.

Tap the link in our bio to view the online exhibition.
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Fouad Elkoury, Bibendum, 1987

The outstretched hand signaling a sublime encounter between the past and the present in ‘Dendera’ transforms into a welcoming gesture to modernity in ‘Bibendum.’ The mascot hovers on a vast empty field next to the Cairo-Alexandria Highway. With only a thin stretch of the road visible, however, Bibendum feels out of place, almost surreal. More than an advertisement of a tire company, it calls into question the forces shaping a country’s modernization and the future passersby are hurtling towards.

The work is presented in ‘Manifold Gestures,’ an online group exhibition that visits The Third Line’s archive, looking at how contemporary artists continue to use the hand, and its manifold gestures, to negotiate questions of agency, labor, relation, and memory. On view until 5 September 2026.

Fouad Elkoury is a Lebanese photographer, filmmaker and writer living between Paris and Beirut. Trained as an architect before turning to photography in 1979, he gained recognition documenting the Lebanese Civil War, though what interests him is less the conflict than time, memory and materiality. His mature work turns inward, layering text and photographic montage over personal narrative.

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20/08/2026

The Third Line is delighted to present ‘Manifold Gestures,’ an online group exhibition featuring works by Farah Al Qasimi (), Fouad Elkoury, Pouran Jinchi, Huda Lutfi (), Sara Naim (), Slavs and Tatars (), and Youssef Nabil () on Artsy ().

On view until 5 September 2026

From prehistoric handprints in cave walls to Leonardo da Vinci’s exquisite studies of the hand, and the Hamsa (also known as Fatima’s Hand) across the Middle East and North Africa to the raised fist of twentieth-century political movements, the hand has been one of the most enduring images across multiple visual cultures. The exhibition visits The Third Line’s archive, looking at how contemporary artists continue to use the hand, and its manifold gestures, to negotiate questions of agency, labor, relation, and memory.

Tap the link in our bio to view the online exhibition!
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Giant water lilies bloom and flourish in Abbas Akhavan’s (abbas 🧿) ‘Entre client et loup,’ which reimagines the Canada P...
19/08/2026

Giant water lilies bloom and flourish in Abbas Akhavan’s (abbas 🧿) ‘Entre client et loup,’ which reimagines the Canada Pavilion’s architecture as a Wardian case, an early type of a terrarium, at the 61st International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia (La Biennale di Venezia).

In his site-specific installation, curated by Kim Nguyen (mskimnguyen), giant water lilies float on a custom pool outfitted with grow lights, evoking the Crystal Palace, constructed to house the Great Exhibition of 1851 in London.

On view until 22 November 2026
📍Canada Pavilion, Giardini della Biennale, Venice, Italy

The installation operates as a satellite garden while the Waterlily House at Kew Gardens—where the seeds of the water lilies were transported from—is closed for renovation. By re-presenting these plants and cultural emblems within the pavilion of a Commonwealth country established under the reign of their namesake, Akhavan offers a meditative space in which to revisit a pivotal moment in world history and to consider how we position ourselves today in relation to our natural and built environments.

Tap on the link in our bio to learn more about ‘Abbas Akhavan: Entre chien et loup’

📷 Installation View: Abbas Akhavan: Entre chien et loup, 2026, Canada Pavilion, 61st International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia. Commissioned by the National Gallery of Canada and presented in partnership with the National Gallery of Canada Foundation and the Canada Council for the Arts. Photo: Francesco Barasciutti.
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The Third Line and The Third Line Shop are closed starting today, August 15, for renovations.We look forward to welcomin...
15/08/2026

The Third Line and The Third Line Shop are closed starting today, August 15, for renovations.

We look forward to welcoming you to the gallery on September 23 for the opening of Rana Begum’s (Rana Begum) solo exhibition. ✨

In the meantime, learn more about our artists’ practice and what’s available at the Shop through our websites — link in bio 🔗
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Youssef Nabil’s (YOUSSEF NABIL) films ‘The Beautiful Voyage,’ (2021), ‘I Saved My Belly Dancer’ (2015),’ and ‘The Room’ ...
13/08/2026

Youssef Nabil’s (YOUSSEF NABIL) films ‘The Beautiful Voyage,’ (2021), ‘I Saved My Belly Dancer’ (2015),’ and ‘The Room’ (2025) are at the inaugural Photo Tanger: International Image Festival, curated by Brahim Alaoui.

On view until 31 August 2026
📍Tangier, Morocco

The theme of this first edition, “The Call of the Open Sea,” pays homage to Tangier’s position at the crossroads of the Mediterranean and the Atlantic—a city that has faced outward since antiquity, defined by its openness to otherness, to travel, and to the encounter between worlds.

Photo Tanger celebrates the image as a universal language, bringing together established and emerging artists from here and elsewhere in the spirit of intercultural exchange that has always defined Tangier.

Still:
Youssef Nabil, I Saved My Belly Dancer, 2015.
Youssef Nabil, The Beautiful Voyage, 2021.
Youssef Nabil, The Room, 2025.

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Farah Al Qasimi (Farah) in ‘Greater New York 2026,’ a group exhibition at MoMA PS1 (MoMA PS1).On view until 17 August ...
12/08/2026

Farah Al Qasimi (Farah) in ‘Greater New York 2026,’ a group exhibition at MoMA PS1 (MoMA PS1).

On view until 17 August 2026
📍MoMA PS1, Queens, NY, USA

The sixth edition of MoMA PS1’s survey of artists living and working in the New York City area brings into focus over 50 multidisciplinary artists in the formative years of their careers. The exhibition emphasizes the forces that shape daily life in the city today, as well as strategies of resistance and adaptation in the face of increased surveillance, economic precarity, and shifting technologies. ‘Greater New York 2026’ registers an optimism and anxiety generated through artists’ attention to the layered, lived textures of New York City.

The exhibition was curated by MoMA PS1’s curatorial team, consisting of Jody Graf and Elena Ketelsen González, Associate Curators; Kari Rittenbach, Assistant Curator; Sheldon Gooch, Curatorial Assistant; and Andrea Sánchez, Curatorial Coordinator; led by Connie Butler, Agnes Gund Director, and Ruba Katrib, Chief Curator and Director of Curatorial Affairs.

Image: Installation view of Greater New York, on view at MoMA PS1 from April 16 through August 17, 2026. Courtesy MoMA PS1. Photo: Kris Graves.

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Address

Warehouse 78, Alserkal Avenue, Street 8, Al Quoz 1
Dubai
72036

Opening Hours

Monday 11:00 - 19:00
Tuesday 11:00 - 19:00
Wednesday 11:00 - 19:00
Thursday 11:00 - 19:00
Friday 11:00 - 19:00
Saturday 11:00 - 19:00

Telephone

+97143411367

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