Alexey Afanasyev, GREEN ART GALLERY:Who goes to exhibitions in Dubai?
Both residents of the UAE, and tourists interested in art. The audience here is quite diverse: it includes collectors, artists and art specialists, as well as schoolchildren and students, often coming to the gallery in large groups. Unfortunately, the UAE still does not have a working museum of fine arts, so galleries have to take on the educational function as well. The greatest number of visitors can be met during the opening of new exhibitions and seasonal "art nights", when galleries are open until late and interesting events are held there.
Is it profitable to keep a gallery in Dubai?
New galleries appear with enviable regularity, but, unfortunately, many also close quickly. Gallery business is not as easy as it might seem at first glance. It requires large investments, professional staff and hard work to survive in fierce competition. Nevertheless, the largest players in this field can always boast of high sales, but do not forget that they have been going to such success for many years.
Does the UAE have art censorship?
The contents of the exhibitions are usually determined by the gallery owners themselves or specially invited curators. State censorship as such does not go through, except that at customs, works of overly explicit content may not be missed. That is, the organizers are always guided by their own boundaries of the permissible, as well as the context in which a particular work is exhibited. For example, the naked nature of the work of a modernist artist of the 50s, exhibited in a private gallery, is unlikely to raise questions. At the same time, the incident at the 2010 Biennale in Sharjah was vividly remembered when an overly provocative installation installed in the open space of the city was hastily removed. The reason for the scandal then was the complaint of one of the local residents, who was unprepared to meet with this work outside the gallery context.
