Ten Years of Art: Waddington Custot Dubai

This year, Waddington Custot Dubai marks ten years of presenting international art in the United Arab Emirates. To celebrate this milestone, the gallery presents an anniversary exhibition conceived as an homage to the artists who have shaped its programme over the past decade — a cross-generational dialogue between the modern masters who laid the gallery’s foundations and the contemporary voices who continue to expand its horizons.

'Ten Years of Art: Waddington Custot Dubai' brings together paintings, sculptures, ceramics and works on paper by Etel Adnan, Ali Banisadr, Fernando Botero, Nick Brandt, Umberto Mariani, Georges Mathieu, Joan Miró, Pablo Picasso, Marc Quinn, Arnaud Rivieren, Tomás Saraceno, Chu Teh-Chun, Sophia Vari, Bernar Venet and Fabienne Verdier.

Among the cornerstones of the gallery’s first decade was its important solo presentation of Fernando Botero, a milestone in introducing the late Colombian master to audiences in the region. Two intimate watercolours from his final years, Musician (2022) and Dancers (2022), distil in miniature the warmth, volume and quiet humanity that defined his world.

A figure of singular importance to the region, the late Lebanese-American artist Etel Adnan has been a guiding presence in the gallery’s programme since its earliest years in Dubai, most recently presented by Waddington Custot at Art Basel Doha. Her monumental ceramic Mont Tamalpaïs II (2019) returns to the gallery for this anniversary — a luminous evocation of the Northern Californian peak central to her artistic cosmology, and a sensibility that has resonated profoundly with audiences in the Gulf.

Two of the programme’s longest-standing collaborations also anchor the show. Bernar Venet’s corten steel works 8 Acute Unequal Angles (2016), shown the year of the gallery’s arrival in the region, and the more recent 229.5° Arc x 10 (2022) extend his enduring meditation on geometry and the language of line. Alongside, Fabienne Verdier’s monumental polyptych Ascèse (Asceticism) (2015), in black acrylic on a blue cotton-linen ground, brings together her years of study with master calligraphers in China and her singular vision of contemporary abstraction.

British photographer Nick Brandt, the subject of several solo presentations at the gallery over the past decade, is represented by Abandoned Ostrich Egg, Amboseli (2007) — a platinum print of quiet, almost devotional stillness, drawn from his celebrated East African series.

The exhibition also presents a new sculpture by Belgian artist Arnaud Rivieren, Papaya (2026), conceived especially for the anniversary. Based in Dubai, Rivieren transforms scavenged steel sourced from local yards into monumental, organic forms — a practice central to the gallery’s commitment to artists working in the UAE.

Above all, this anniversary is an occasion to thank those who have made these ten years possible: the artists, whose vision is the very reason for the gallery’s existence; the patrons and collectors, whose trust has sustained the programme from the outset; the museums and institutions of the region for their partnership; the auction houses to the auction houses — particularly Christie's — whose expertise and friendship have shaped many of our most ambitious collaborations; the art fairs, in particular Abu Dhabi Art, Art Dubai and Art Basel Doha, for the platforms they have offered our artists; and the curators, writers, partners, friends and visitors who have walked through our doors at Alserkal Avenue. To everyone who has, in ways large and small, contributed to this programme: thank you. The next decade is yours, as much as it is ours.