Frieze Abu Dhabi - the fair brand's first outpost in West Asia, North Africa and South Asia - opens its inaugural edition on 19 November 2026 at Manarat Al Saadiyat. It gathers 84 galleries from 37 countries and regions, succeeding Abu Dhabi Art, which ran for 17 editions before being rebranded under a partnership between Frieze and the Department of Culture and Tourism - Abu Dhabi. Dyala Nusseibeh, who previously directed Abu Dhabi Art, leads the new venture, and organisers describe the tighter list as the result of a more stringent selection process built around curated sections rather than scale. Two Pakistani artists give the debut a distinct South Asian thread. Hamra Abbas joins the gallery programme through Dubai-based Lawrie Shabibi, while Imran Qureshi's new sculpture Water Bodies (2026) goes outdoors to Mamsha Beach as part of Frieze Sculpture Abu Dhabi. The beach show runs 16 November to 16 December - nearly a month beyond the fair - and places Qureshi alongside Zeinab Alhashemi, Mohamed Ahmed Ibrahim and Kamran Samimi. Women artists are promised a strong presence, with Etel Adnan, Abbas and Shaikha Al Mazrou among those shown. Three new strands structure the edition: Global Futures, for early- and mid-career artists linked to the UAE and West Asia; Frieze Masters Abu Dhabi, for historical objects from antiquity to the early twentieth century; and In Dialogue, an annual pairing of an established and an emerging Emirati artist, opening with Mohammed Kazem and Alia Zaal. All three strands are overseen by an all-female curatorial team. Qureshi, trained at Lahore's National College of Arts in the early 1990s, scales the Mughal miniature tradition into site-specific installations; his courtyard piece Blessings Upon the Land of My Love won the 2011 Sharjah Biennial prize, and his 2013 Deutsche Bank Artist of the Year title brought a rooftop commission at the Met in New York. Abbas - born in Kuwait and based between Lahore and Islamabad - trained in sculpture and Indo-Persian miniature at the same college, and since her 2015 return to Pakistan has worked with marble inlay and lapis lazuli, engaging collective memory and craft traditions.