The opening of Art Basel Qatar next week marks a significant shift for both the venerable art fair and for its new host country. Art Basel, founded in 1970 in its Swiss home town, has expanded into highly successful editions in Hong Kong, Miami and Paris.
For its venture into the conservative nation of Qatar, however, it has morphed its business model into a smaller and more tightly organised structure. While Art Basel Hong Kong will have 240 galleries this year, Doha’s edition will host just 87. And while it is normal practice for each gallery to bring a range of artists from its stable, in Doha each gallery will show just one, pre-approved artist — elegantly sidestepping the inevitable restrictions on the kinds of art that can be shown in an Islamic country. Pragmatically, Art Basel director Noah Horowitz describes it as a “curated” approach.
The new project is overseen by Sheikha al-Mayassa bint Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, daughter of the former emir and sister of the current ruler, chair of Qatar Museums and a leading light of several of the country’s other cultural initiatives in education, film, fashion and craft. She is a major collector — some suggest, the biggest in the world — but she shrugs off the notion of a personal collection. For Qatar Museums, however, her acquisition budget was estimated by Bloomberg in 2013 as $1bn, tens of times higher than most western institutions.
