Louvre Abu Dhabi and Richard Mille announce fifth edition of Art Here and the Richard Mille Art Prize

This autumn, the soft light beneath the dome of Louvre Abu Dhabi will be punctuated by shadows—six of them, in fact, each cast by the vision of a contemporary artist invited to reimagine one of art’s oldest motifs.

From 11 October to 28 December 2025, Art Here and the Richard Mille Art Prize return for their fifth edition, bringing together a group of artists whose practices stretch across disciplines and geographies, from the Gulf to Japan. The theme this year, Shadows, invites explorations of presence and absence, concealment and revelation, memory and transformation.

The exhibition has been curated by Swiss-Japanese curator Sophie Mayuko Arni, who sifted through more than 400 proposals to arrive at six newly commissioned works. Among those selected are Palestinian architect and artist Ahmed Al-Aqra, Emirati digital artist and musician Jumairy, and Japanese audiovisual innovator Ryoichi Kurokawa. Joining them are Kuwaiti-born artist Hamra Abbas, Japanese painter and filmmaker Rintaro Fuse, and the architectural duo Takuma Yokomae and Ghali Bouayad, whose practice bridges Tokyo and Marrakesh.

Together, these artists reflect a wide spectrum of contemporary expression—whether through architecture, digital performance, or immersive soundscapes. What unites them is an engagement with shadows not only as a visual phenomenon, but as a metaphor for history, identity, and the unseen layers of experience.

The jury that shaped this year’s shortlist reflects a similar breadth of perspective: chaired by His Highness Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan bin Khalifa Al Nahyan, it includes Louvre Abu Dhabi’s Dr Guilhem André, NYU Abu Dhabi’s Maya Allison, Japanese curator Yuko Hasegawa, and Arni herself.

That the Prize now extends to Japan signals its growing reach as a platform for cultural exchange. “Fostering cross-cultural understanding sits at the heart of the museum’s mission,” says Arni. The result is an exhibition that is both grounded in the Gulf and open to wider conversations across borders.

As visitors move through the works this autumn, they may find themselves drawn not just to what the light reveals, but to what it withholds—the shifting edge where art, like shadow, begins to suggest more than it shows.