Image: Menart Fair 2025, Paris (installation view). Photo: The Social Medium. Courtesy Menart Fair
Menart Fair, the Paris fair devoted to modern and contemporary art from the Middle East and North Africa, holds its seventh edition at 116 rue de Turenne in the 3rd arrondissement, open to the public from 23 to 25 October 2026 after a preview for institutions and collectors on 22 October. According to the organizers, this year's fair brings together 34 galleries from 18 countries and 105 artists, with scenes ranging from Damascus and Tehran to Algiers, Beirut, Cairo, Dubai, Tripoli and Khartoum.
The edition is built around the question "Where is Home?", with artists addressing belonging, memory, identity and how people relate to the world around them.
Its Project Room is given over to a new generation of artists living and working in Algeria. Titled "Se mettre devant l'image" ("Standing in Front of the Image"), the exhibition is curated by Wassyla Tamzali, founder of Ateliers Sauvages in Algiers, and brings together 12 artists. It is supported by the Saison Méditerranée 2026, the Institut français d'Algérie, the City of Paris and Menart Friends.
Among the works highlighted by the fair are Hussein Baalbaki's "Cathedral 1" (2023), in mixed media and oil on canvas, shown by Artbooth Gallery of Abu Dhabi; Serge Najjar's photograph "Blind Walls" (2022), with Galerie Bessières of Paris; Khaled Hourani's "Naser" (2022), with Turab Art Project of Ramallah; and Hala Aljaafari's "The Long Afternoon" (2026), with Quartum Galleri of Tønsberg, Norway. Samira Morcos's "Spirit of the Forest" (2025) is made from recovered textile, while Sayed Waked's "Together" (2026) is in blown glass and Nasip İyem's untitled terracotta dates from 1976.
A programme of round tables runs in the Project Room. On 23 October two sessions in French take up the fair's theme and the Algerian scene, with speakers including the art historian Nadine Atallah, Éric Delpont, former director of the museum of the Institut du monde arabe, the philosopher Seloua Luste Boulbina, the writer Samir Toumi and Tamzali herself. On 24 October two sessions in English examine the growth of museums in the Arab world and the relationship between Arab art past and present, bringing together Farah Abushullaih of the Ithra Museum and Eman Zidan of the Red Sea Museum in Saudi Arabia, the gallerists Naïla Kettaneh-Kunigk of Galerie Tanit and Mona Ahmed Saïd of Safarkhan Art Gallery in Cairo, and the collector Kalim Bechara.
During the vernissage, Maison Boucheron will also announce the winner of its "Coup de Cœur" prize.
