UAE Dubai Culture hosts NFT exhibition

Recognising the positive impact of collaboration to support the creative industry, Dubai Culture and Arts Authority (Dubai Culture) is collaborating with MORROW collective, the UAE’s NFT curatorial initiative, to host an exhibition of non-fungible tokens (NFT) celebrating the UAE. The exhibition, titled 50/50, comprises 50 NFTs made by UAE-based artists, including Emirati artists Khalid Al Banna, Alia AlGaoud, and Dalal Ahmed, to mark the UAE’s 50^th anniversary, and will be presented at Al Safa Art & Design Library starting 15 January 2021. This is the first exhibition of its kind to explicitly feature UAE-based artists.

An open call was held to identify the showcased works, and the diversity of the selections reflects the UAE’s multicultural society. The NFTs vary from 3D pieces to animation, from digital drawing to traditional painting, and from collages to photography. This is the first time that some of the artists have made NFTs, and the works cover a multitude of themes, representing powerful portraits of humanity, abstract musings on the human condition, light-heartedness, powerful messages, and an exercise in pure visual enjoyment.

The physical iteration of the exhibition bridges the gap between the traditional and the NFT art worlds by showing the pieces of art on digital screens. Of the 50 artworks, pieces by Marwan Shakarchi and Gigi Gorlova have already been sold, and an auction featuring three Emirati artists will take place at the end of this month.