Following her art school education in the US, where the post-9/11 climate conditioned her understanding of how the Arab world was being represented to international audiences, Maliha Tabari returned to the Gulf motivated to present the region’s artists on their own terms. At 21, she establishes Artspace (later Tabari Artspace) in Dubai, one of the first contemporary art galleries in the Gulf.

The gallery is built from relationships formed over years across Cairo, Amman, Beirut and beyond, with painters and sculptors whose work had found no serious platform in the Gulf. From the first exhibition, the programme foregrounds female perspectives, a position that has remained constant across more than two decades.

The gallery’s inaugural exhibition, Vis-à-Vis, brought together the photography of Shadi Ghadirian and works by Bahram Jajali. Vis-à-Vis contributed to the early focus on Persian artists working in the aftermath of 9/11. Later, the gallery presented the first solo exhibition of Farhad Moshiri in the Gulf, introducing his practice to the region at an early stage in his career.

Mohamed Abla’s work is presented at the British Museum, London, the first of several major institutional showings for artists that the gallery has developed over the preceding decade. 

Tabari Artspace relocates to the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC), establishing the gallery within the UAE’s primary hub for international collectors, auction houses and institutions. The move positions the gallery at the centre of a rapidly expanding regional art infrastructure, at a moment when Dubai is becoming the principal point of entry for international engagement with MENA art.

A landmark solo show for the great Palestinian modernist, one of the most important geometric abstract painters of his generation. His works enter the collections of the British Museum, Institut du Monde Arabe, UNESCO, and Mathaf. Artspace is among the first Gulf galleries to give him this platform.

The gallery presents an early exhibition of Ahmed Mater, several years before Edge of Arabia brought Saudi contemporary art to European and American audiences, reflecting Maliha’s longstanding relationships with artists from the Kingdom where she grew up, and her early recognition of a practice engaging the transformation of Saudi society, faith and urban life. 

The Arab Spring transforms the political landscape of the MENA, and artists across the gallery’s programme respond from within their own specific contexts. In Egypt, Khaled Zaki produces monumental bronze figures that process collective trauma and renewal. Mohamed Abla records the textures of Egyptian life through a period of rupture. In Palestine, Hazem Harb continues to layer archival documents and maps, his practice absorbing the pressures of a conflict that long predates the uprisings. In Lebanon, Tagreed Darghouth works in the shadow of the unresolved legacy of civil war.

Following his biennale presentation, Khaled Zaki presents, In the Wind of January, at Tabari Artspace, the first solo exhibition directly to address the aftermath of the Egyptian Revolution of 2011 through sculpture. The work marks an early stage in what will become the Resurrection series, Zaki’s sustained reckoning with collective trauma, civic rupture and the possibility of renewal.

Hazem Harb participates in the FotoFest Houston Biennial, among the earliest international biennial presentations for an artist whose work will enter the collections of the Centre Georges Pompidou, LACMA and the British Museum. 

Hazem Harb represents the Tunisian Pavilion at the 57th Venice Biennale in 2017. Khaled Zaki participates in the 7th Beijing International Biennale the same year.

Tabari Artspace presents El Beit, a group exhibition of Palestinian artists: Hazem Harb, Sliman Mansour and Mohammed Joha. El Beit brought together three generations of Palestinian artists to address the ongoing erasure of collective memory. In placing modernist and contemporary practices in conversation, El Beit positioned the gallery as a platform for intergenerational Palestinian art history.

Hazem Harb participates in Cairo Biennale 13. Khaled Zaki, Mohamed Abla, Lulwah Al Homoud and Hazem Harb are included in Reflections: Contemporary Art of the Middle East at the British Museum, London.

Tabari Artspace rebrands, adopting a bridge as its symbol, a declaration of the gallery’s mission: a platform connecting generations, geographies and communities through art. 

Maliha formalises a programme of grants, residencies and mentorship for emerging Gulf artists, an investment in a generation of practices still in formation and responsive to the post-oil boom in the GCC. Over four years, 2021 to 2024, six artists would define this moment and reshape the gallery’s identity: Hashel Al Lamki, Maitha Abdalla, Almaha Jaralla, Talal Al Najjar, Ziad Al Najjar and Alymamah Rashed. 

Tagreed Darghouth produces a body of work in direct response to the Beirut port explosion, the paintings circulating internationally and drawing critical attention to her practice.

Hazem Harb is included in Global(e) Resistance at the Centre Georges Pompidou, his second major presentation at the institution. 

Chafa Ghaddar and Hashel Al Lamki are presented at the Lyon Biennale.

Aya Haidar’s Highly Strung (2020), a year-long durational embroidery work produced during lockdown, is acquired by the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi. 

Tabari Artspace presents A City Undisguised; Beirut: No Home No Exile by Tagreed Darghouth at Cromwell Place, London, two years after the Beirut port explosion of 4 August 2020 destroyed her studio in Mar Mikhael. 

The gallery marks its twentieth anniversary and launches its artist residency at the La Serena hotel in Forte dei Marmi, Italy, offering artists dedicated time for research and production. 

Tabari Artspace presents Battlegrounds, a solo exhibition by Aya Haidar. The exhibition takes gendered labour as its central argument: that the domestic sphere, the refugee camp, the street and the zone of armed conflict are all sites in which women’s bodies and work are simultaneously essential and invisible. Through sustained solo exhibitions and fair presentations, the gallery has consistently foregrounded the female gaze across its programme.

Mohamed Monaiseer participates in Art Basel Miami Beach and Art Lagos. Hashel Al Lamki presents at Sharjah Biennial 16. Maitha Abdalla makes her debut at the Aichi Triennale, Japan. Artists of the Middle East: 1900 to Now by Saeb Eigner, the first comprehensive A-Z survey of modern and contemporary art from the Middle East and North Africa, is published by Thames & Hudson. The book includes entries on Tabari Artspace artists: Mohamed Abla, Hazem Harb, Sliman Mansour and Tagreed Darghouth.

Tabari Artspace participates in the inaugural Art Basel Qatar, presenting a solo booth dedicated to Hazem Harb. Same Air, an exhibition of fourteen artists rooted in the region offered a direct response to the events of 28 February 2026. 

Fellow Travellers, a group exhibition curated by Dr Omar Kholeif, brings together seminal female modernists whose practices have been marginalised within the prevailing art historical narrative. Tabari Artspace launches Out of Frame, a media platform dedicated to new narratives and voices from the art world, bringing artists and thinkers into conversation beyond the boundaries of the gallery’s roster.