Louvre Abu Dhabi Art Here 2025: shadows and the poetry of light

The fifth edition of Louvre Abu Dhabi Art Here 2025, in collaboration with luxury Swiss watchmaker Richard Mille, brings together art, architecture, and philosophy under the museum’s iconic dome. Running from October 11th to December 28th, the exhibition explores the theme Shadows — a meditation on light, absence, and the shifting boundaries of identity and memory.

The Richard Mille Art Prize: light, absence, and transformation

At the heart of Louvre Abu Dhabi Art Here 2025 lies the Richard Mille Art Prize, which celebrates exceptional voices shaping Middle Eastern contemporary art. Curated by Swiss-Japanese curator Sophie Mayuko Arni, this year’s edition invited artists from the GCC, Japan, and the wider MENA region to reflect on the dualities of light and darkness — and how these opposites define our perception of beauty and existence.

More than 400 proposals were submitted, resulting in six shortlisted works that capture the poetic tension between illumination and obscurity. Together, they transform the museum’s vast spaces into an immersive landscape of reflection and shadowplay.

Exploring shadows in Middle Eastern contemporary art

Ahmed Alaqra: I remember. a light

Palestinian architect and artist Ahmed Alaqra reimagines the architectural memory of the Gulf through light’s retreat. His installation, composed of acrylic cubes encapsulating digitised shadows from the streets of Sharjah, evokes the region’s vernacular structures — the mashrabiya and shaded arcades that have long shaped life in intense sunlight. Each cube preserves a fleeting trace of the city, turning ephemeral shadow into lasting memory.

Jumairy: Echo

Emirati multidisciplinary artist Jumairy approaches shadow as emotion. In Echo, a digital well illuminated by LED light responds to the viewer’s presence, merging myth and technology. Inspired by the story of Echo and Narcissus, the work shifts the focus from reflection to introspection — turning absence into intimacy. Viewers confront their own silhouettes in a luminous dialogue between the self and its shadow.

Ryoichi Kurokawa: skadw-

Japanese artist Ryoichi Kurokawa translates the intangible into sound and mist. His audiovisual installation transforms a beam of light into a sculptural entity, revealing shadows as living, breathing forms. Drawing on the Japanese concept of Ma — the interval or in-between — Kurokawa invites visitors into a meditative environment where darkness becomes generative and presence emerges through silence.

A universal dialogue between light and culture

Each artwork in Louvre Abu Dhabi Art Here 2025 reflects a different geography yet speaks a shared visual language. From Alaqra’s architectural memories of Sharjah to Kurokawa’s ethereal interpretation of Japanese aesthetics, the exhibition bridges continents through the metaphor of shadow.

As Manuel Rabaté, Director of Louvre Abu Dhabi, noted, the exhibition embodies the museum’s mission to foster cross-cultural exchange and elevate contemporary art from the region onto a global stage. For Tilly Harrison, Managing Director of Richard Mille Middle East, the partnership continues to illuminate “the intellectual and emotional depth that defines artistic practice in the region.”

The winner of the Richard Mille Art Prize 2025 will be announced in December, concluding an exhibition that reminds us that shadows — far from concealing — reveal the essence of what we see, and what we choose to imagine.