It is far too easy to dismiss art fairs, if not the entire commercial art market. By the same token, it is easy to be turned off by Dubai , the most glitzy and commercial of the UAE's emirates. It might take a little longer to appreciate how an art fair staged in a free port like this could benefit artistic production and development—an...

'The 2018 edition of the fair presents an intimate and diverse line-up of 105 galleries from 48 countries, making this year's edition the fair's largest and most globally diverse to date. Alongside 77 returning galleries, the fair welcomes 28 first-time exhibitors from around the world.' –Art Dubai (21–24 March 2018).

'Notable for its unique position both geographically and culturally, the Contemporary Istanbul art fair prides itself on bringing together galleries, artists and collectors from Turkey, the Caucasus, the Black Sea, Russia and the Middle East, as well as from Europe, America and Asia.' –Contemporary Istanbul (14–17 September 2017).

How did you first meet and start collaborating as artists? We have known each other since childhood, but did our first project together as "Recycle Group" in 2008. Before that we worked separately but always advised each other, after realising that each of us have a role in creating the work and we started to work as a group....

The most attractive show I’ve seen recently at one of these is at the Gazelli Art House in Dover Street, (Top Photo) which is a handsome gallery on two floors, with its ownership rooted (of all places) in Baku. The exhibition is called Multiverse and runs till 11th January, so there is time to see it.

Throughout the show Ostrer collages and layers both sculptural and photographic elements together to create disrupted and often disturbing images. Within the vast footwear installation is his most recent photographic series, Currentsee. For the central protagonist he transforms himself into a dominant tribal leader, a powerful chieftain of all...

It’s a chilly morning in Oxford when I meet with Saad Qureshi at OVADA (the Oxford Visual Arts Development Agency), a reconverted warehouse now home to five artist’s studios. Built in 1929 as the Skin and Hide Market Place for the neighbouring Oxpens Cattle Market at the time, the spartan building maintains that character, with its central open...

Azeri artist Niyaz Najafov has been touted as the next Francis Bacon, and in many ways the comparison is apt. Najafov, like Bacon, is self-taught. Having worked as a professional hand-to-hand fighter, a soldier in the Soviet army, and later a policeman, he first experimented with oil paints in 2003 at the age of 35, and was selected to represent...

Najafov originally trained as a soldier, as well as a professional sportsman – coaching hand-to-hand combat. Inspired by other self-taught artists such as Paul Gauguin and Francis Bacon, it was only in 2003 that he began to experiment with oil paint. In a short span of time, Najafov has been touted to be the next "Francis Bacon" and has...

'I started the residency responding to the studio space with its abandoned junk, which I was told I could make use of. I saw it as 'lovingly stored' for potential use. It felt sad that it would be thrown away, so I started to pick through everything much like a jackdaw or crow might.' From these discards McAdam Freud's sculptures arise imbued...