Abu Dhabi Art enjoys healthy sales at this year’s in-person event – The National

Abu Dhabi Art enjoys healthy sales at this year’s in-person event – The National

Abu Dhabi Art is at Manarat Al Saadiyat this year for its first in-person event since the onset of the pandemic. With the event being held online last year, galleries had to traverse the rockier terrain of attracting clients and making sales solely in the virtual realm. Now back in a physical space, several galleries have expressed immense relief at being able to meet clients face to face and discuss artworks, with the viscerality of canvases and the contours of sculptural works, for instance, far more easily viewed, allowing for relationships between the viewer and the work to be formed quicker.

A general trend has emerged at the fair this year, with galleries expressing that their sales have significantly improved, compared with being online. Several galleries, such as Perrotin, say that despite being able to make some sales online last year, it feels easier now to be able to attract new clients and simply do their job in a more traditional and comfortable way – conversationally, to aid the transactional aims of a fair, which is, in essence, a marketplace.

“We took a massive hit when we were just online,” says Leila Heller, founder and director of Dubai’s Leila Heller Gallery. “We