ArtInternational’s Emirati director Dyala Nusseibeh on growing the Istanbul art scene

Dyala Nusseibeh has always had a head for the arts. Her father, Zaki Nusseibeh, is a cultural adviser to Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the President of the UAE, and has been an adviser and interpreter for the leaders of the country since 1968.

As his youngest daughter, she fondly remembers countless childhood road trips around the cultural capitals of Europe including Florence, Rome and Barcelona, and agrees that it probably played a vital role in shaping her future.

Last year, she launched ArtInternational, an art fair in Istanbul aimed at harnessing the growing population of art collectors there and in the wider region. The fair’s second edition will open on Friday and it promises to be bigger and better than the first.

Establishing an identity

Istanbul is no stranger to culture or to art fairs. One of the regional heavyweights in terms of history and a hub for the arts, the city already hosts Contemporary Istanbul, which takes place at a number of venues each November, as well as the slightly smaller Artist-Istanbul, which concentrates on antiques and artifacts.

So how did Nusseibeh go about making her fair stand out?

“In any big city there are several fairs that happen at the same time, and this is no different,” she says. “We are more or less the first fair to pick up the idea of having a selection committee for the applications to ensure a really high-quality presentation across the fair, and I would say that the main difference is that other fairs are more inclusive of many different levels of galleries.”

Original article by Anna Seaman

Continue reading at The National:

ArtInternational’s Emirati director Dyala Nusseibeh on growing the Istanbul art scene