ArtAsiaPacific's Valentina Buzzi reviewed the inaugural Art Basel Qatar in a piece published on 9 February 2026 titled 'Slow and Purposeful: Art Basel Qatar 2026', focusing on the fair's one-artist-per-booth curatorial model and its emphasis on artists from the MENASA region.
The review describes Tabari Artspace's presentation of Palestinian artist Hazem Harb, writing that his project 'mobilised archaeology as a critical framework to examine displacement, circulation, and epistemic violence'. It places the booth within a wider survey of the fair that also took in single-artist presentations built around figures such as Ahmed Mater and Rasheed Araeen.
Buzzi's account frames Harb's Doha presentation as continuing his long-standing use of archaeological method to interrogate Palestinian displacement, a line of work that has run through his archival collage series and into gallery and fair presentations with Tabari Artspace over the past decade. The piece situates Art Basel Qatar 2026 as a fair still finding its own pace and priorities in its debut edition.
