Green Art Gallery & Contemporary Lane

Why is it significant?

Pause before the wide glass entrance of Green Art Gallery inside Warehouse 28 along Contemporary Gallery Lane. Originally founded in 1988 by the late Syrian art patron Mayla Atassi in a private Jumeirah villa, Green Art Gallery is one of the oldest private art galleries in the United Arab Emirates.

Key Facts

Open the walk

Pause before the wide glass entrance of Green Art Gallery inside Warehouse 28 along Contemporary Gallery Lane. Originally founded in 1988 by the late Syrian art patron Mayla Atassi in a private Jumeirah villa, Green Art Gallery is one of the oldest private art galleries in the United Arab Emirates. In 2010, the gallery made the visionary decision to relocate to the raw industrial warehouses of Alserkal Avenue, transitioning from a salon of classical Arab modernism to a leading platform for radical contemporary art. Today, the gallery represents leading contemporary artists from across the Middle East, North Africa, South Asia, and the global diaspora. Its presence established Alserkal Avenue as an internationally recognized commercial art center.

Step inside the expansive, sun-filled gallery hall: the high white walls accommodate monumental multi-panel canvases, room-scale video installations, and experimental sculptures. Artists represented here have had their works acquired by premier international institutions, including the Tate Modern in London, the Pompidou Centre in Paris, and the Guggenheim in New York. The exhibitions tackle urgent contemporary themes—migration, urban memory, ecological change, and post-colonial identity—with profound intellectual rigor. Carefully calibrated gallery lighting washes across textured canvases, revealing nuanced brushwork and mixed-media techniques.

The neighboring warehouses along this lane form a powerhouse cluster of international contemporary art. Just doors away sit renowned galleries like Carbon 12, Grey Noise, and Lawrie Shabibi, each curating museum-grade exhibitions that push the boundaries of regional contemporary discourse. On gallery opening nights, art lovers from across the world stroll between these spaces, discussing new artistic movements with curators over cups of coffee. This collaborative cluster gave Dubai a permanent institutional weight in the global contemporary art calendar.

In the gallery's back research office, examine the archival catalogues: they document the historic early exhibitions of pioneering Arab modernists like Fateh Moudarres and Louay Kayyali.

Continue south along the lane toward 17th Street to discover the artisan bean-to-bar factory of Mirzam Chocolate Makers.