It's a familiar story in cities worldwide: artists move into rundown areas for the cheap rents, which begins a process of regeneration and-to use a dirtier word-gentrification.
Dubai doesn't need any help with either of those things. I mean, why would it need artists to help regenerate areas of the city when it can simply build the living daylights out of anything that isn't already spectacular?
But anyone who loves art and its effect on a place ought to be pleased by Dubai's art scene. Like in other cities, it's a grass-roots movement rather than an installation from above.
Dubai's Al Quoz district started blossoming as an artistic haven around the same time as East London and Brooklyn, New York City. Like those hubs of creativity, Al Quoz is a formerly rundown area that still looks like an industrial no-man's land.
Old factories and warehouses, which have barely changed on the outside, are now home to art galleries and studios - the backbone of the Middle East's groovy new arts scene.
Traveling down its streets, there are vantages where you could confuse Al Quoz for the industrial zones of London and Brooklyn, where young artists have migrated in search of cheap rent and studio space. It looks, feels, and mostly is a world away from the glitz and hubris of central Dubai.
The nucleus of the Middle East's avant-garde is the Third Line gallery, an ultra-modernist white cube where the UAE meets the West Coast of the USA.
From the outside, you could be staring at a piece of California pop art-a scene from Ruscha, Hopper, or early Hockney. However, inside, a Western template is given over to support mostly up-and-coming and established artists from the Middle East.
Step into the Third Line on any given day, and you could be treated to an exhibition or a talk by one of the region's many accomplished artists and a bookshop supporting its growing body of fantastic contemporary art.
Make no mistake, Dubai isn't a pale imitation of a Western gallery. It holds its own on the international stage, as do the many other relatively new galleries in Al Quoz. Middle Eastern artists are increasingly breaking into the global art scene, and the world appears to be taking notice.
Attend one of the private views or exhibition openings in Al Quoz. You won't just find Arabian art dealers scouting for pieces from the local talent. You'll hear art connoisseurs from London, New York, and Paris come to see what Dubai has to offer. And, like me, they're usually very impressed.
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