Efie Gallery Dubai: A Destination for Contemporary African Art
Where African Perspectives Meet Dubai’s Creative Horizon
In the ever-growing constellation of contemporary art spaces shaping the Middle East, Efie Gallery has emerged as one of Dubai’s most compelling new cultural forces. Founded by the Ghanaian family trio Valentina, Kwame, and Kobi Mintah, the gallery occupies Warehouse 61 in Alserkal Avenue, Dubai’s definitive arts district, where it champions leading voices in modern and contemporary African art. With its cross-continental perspective and curatorial ambition, Efie Gallery brings a vital new energy to the region, reframing Dubai as a meeting point for African creativity and global artistic dialogue.
‘The Shape of Things to Come’ at Efie Gallery, Dubai, 2025.
Left, artist Abdoulaye Konaté. Right, SHONIBARE, Hybrid Mask.
Specialising in modern and contemporary African art, the gallery represents globally influential figures including El Anatsui, Aïda Muluneh, Abdoulaye Konaté, María Magdalena Campos-Pons, Yaw Owusu, and historic Ghanaian photographer J.K. Bruce-Vanderpuije. Through this roster, Efie Gallery offers Dubai audiences access to some of the most important artistic voices shaping global discourse today.
A New Cultural Force in Dubai’s Contemporary Art Scene
Efie Gallery’s presence in Dubai signals a broader shift in the region: a growing recognition of the global South as a driving force in contemporary culture. While many Dubai galleries have historically focused on Europe, North America, or the Middle East, Efie Gallery expands this horizon by foregrounding African perspectives and diasporic narratives.
‘The Shape of Things to Come’ at Efie Gallery, Dubai, 2025.
With its commitment to cross-cultural exchange, the gallery reinforces Dubai’s identity as a meeting point of global ideas, providing a platform where themes of heritage, identity, migration, and materiality can be explored in depth.
Current Exhibition in Dubai: The Shape of Things to Come
11 October 2025 – 10 January 2026, Curated by Dexter Wimberly.
Efie Gallery’s latest exhibition, The Shape of Things to Come, is one of the most anticipated art shows in Dubai’s 2025–2026 art season. Curated by internationally recognised curator Dexter Wimberly, the exhibition brings together six major contemporary artists whose work interrogates transformation, global change, and the power of human agency.
‘The Shape of Things to Come’ at Efie Gallery, Dubai, 2025.
The show explores how artists not only respond to the world as it shifts but also actively shape the cultural and political futures ahead of us. Using innovative materials, from textiles and photography to sculptural hybrids and conceptual painting, the artists create a compelling visual conversation about identity, memory, and what lies ahead.
Exhibition Highlights: Leading Contemporary Artists Featured in Dubai
El Anatsui: Transforming Materials into Cultural Narratives
Ghanaian master El Anatsui, one of Africa’s most celebrated contemporary artists, presents new sculptural works made from recycled bottle caps and metals. Anatsui’s signature shimmering tapestries transform discarded materials into vast, breathtaking installations, speaking to globalisation, sustainability, and the reassembly of fragmented histories.
Iman Issa: Reimagining Museum Histories
Egyptian artist Iman Issa offers minimalist sculptural pieces that redefine the language of museums and heritage. Her work Expedition of Punt (2017) reframes historical artefacts as contemporary forms, prompting viewers to rethink how historical narratives are constructed and preserved.
Abdoulaye Konaté: Monumental Textiles from Mali
Renowned Malian artist Abdoulaye Konaté contributes large-scale textile compositions that blend West African dyeing traditions with contemporary political commentary. His 2025 work Resistance explores themes of resilience and collective memory through layered, tactile fabrics.
Adam Pendleton: Black Dada and the Politics of Language
American artist Adam Pendleton expands his ongoing Black Dada project with two powerful 2024 paintings. Through text, gestural marks, and silkscreen techniques, Pendleton interrogates race, language, and the abstraction of cultural identity.
Yinka Shonibare CBE: Hybrid Masks for a Global World
Yinka Shonibare CBE, the British-Nigerian artist known worldwide for examining colonial legacies, presents sculptural masks that merge West African ceremonial forms with European aesthetics. These works question how cultural identities are constructed, blended, and reimagined in the 21st century.
Carrie Mae Weems: Architecture, Memory, and the African Diaspora
Legendary American photographer Carrie Mae Weems contributes images from her 1993 Africa series, featuring architectural studies from Ghana, Senegal, and Mali. These photographs examine the architectural legacies of colonialism, gendered spaces, and the emotional weight of diasporic memory.
Upcoming Exhibitions
In early 2026, Efie Gallery continues its commitment to championing contemporary African art and cultivating critical dialogue between artists, place, and evolving cultural narratives. Through two major solo exhibitions, the gallery presents ambitious new bodies of work that expand the practices of leading and emerging artists working across photography and sculpture.
This Bloom I Borrow | Aïda Muluneh
Behind the scenes image of Aïda Muluneh preparing for a shoot, courtesy the artist and Efie Gallery, Dubai.
17 January – 5 April 2026
Efie Gallery opens the year with This Bloom I Borrow, a new series of photographs by Ethiopian artist Aïda Muluneh, marking her second solo exhibition at the gallery. Featuring over ten previously unseen works, the exhibition reflects a pivotal moment in the artist’s 25-year career. Recognised as a pioneer in contemporary photography and a catalyst for change within Africa, Muluneh has shaped a distinct visual language that merges bold colour, meticulous theatricality, and symbolic abstraction.
Her vivid compositions, painted figures staged in surreal, meticulously constructed environments draw on African iconography, architecture and textiles, creating visual narratives that traverse photography, painting and performance. The works delve into the layered terrain of identity, belief and cultural inheritance.
As Muluneh notes: “These works reflect on the dualities that shape existence and explore the dialogue between the visible and the hidden, between personal history and collective memory, power and vulnerability, faith and transformation. A meditation on the impermanence of beauty and the resilience of spirit, each piece becomes an excavation of memory and emotion, questioning how culture, belief and gender define and often confine the self.”
Muluneh’s new series demonstrates both a refinement of her signature aesthetic and an expanded philosophical depth, positioning the exhibition as a key contribution to contemporary photographic practice.
Maggie Otieno | Solo Exhibition
Maggie Otieno. Photography courtesy of Ofoe Amegavie and Efie Gallery.
April – May 2026
Following Muluneh’s exhibition, Efie Gallery presents the first solo exhibition of Kenyan artist Maggie Otieno, whose sculptural assemblages explore material memory, place and transformation. Working primarily with reclaimed wood and metal, Otieno engages with the histories embedded in discarded fragments, reconfiguring them into contemplative forms that echo the rhythms of lived experience.
This exhibition emerges from Otieno’s recent two-month residency at the studio of El Anatsui in Tema, Ghana, a profound milestone in her artistic development. Immersed in an environment shaped by one of the most influential figures in contemporary art, she deepened her engagement with materiality, form and the sculptural medium’s capacity for renewal. The works produced for this exhibition reflect that encounter, marked by experimentation, tactile sensitivity and an expanded sense of possibility.
Through these two exhibitions, Efie Gallery foregrounds contemporary artists who harness material invention and cultural inquiry to generate new visual languages. Together, Muluneh and Otieno reveal how art can act as a site of reconstruction, of memory, identity, and collective imagination, resonating far beyond geographical and disciplinary boundaries.
Efie Gallery’s Role in the Middle East’s Evolving Cultural Landscape
Efie Gallery is helping expand the regional art ecosystem by centring African voices in Dubai’s cultural conversation. Its exhibitions, artist representation, and public programming connect the Middle East to African and diasporic artistic frameworks, strengthening Dubai’s position as a global capital for contemporary art.
Rekord Gallery, Efie.
By situating major African artists alongside international influences, the gallery encourages new forms of dialogue and positions Dubai as a place where global South artistic narratives can flourish. For collectors, researchers, and art enthusiasts in the UAE, Efie Gallery provides unprecedented access to works that redefine contemporary cultural production.
A Future-Facing Art Space in Dubai
With The Shape of Things to Come, Efie Gallery once again demonstrates its commitment to presenting globally resonant, thought-provoking exhibitions in Dubai. As the city continues to thrive as a cultural crossroads, Efie Gallery stands at the forefront, championing innovation, expanding artistic narratives, and shaping new futures for contemporary African art in the Middle East.
Plan Your Visit to Efie Gallery in Dubai
Warehouse 61, Alserkal Avenue, 17th Street, Al Quoz Industrial Area 1, Dubai
Hours: Monday – Saturday, 11am–7pm. Sundays: By appointment (+971 4 252 4182)