While art fairs in general may not have the artworld status they once enjoyed, Horowitz announced Art Basel Qatar as the company’s fifth fair location, tapping artist Wael Shawky as artistic director for the first edition in 2026. Previous expansions of the original Swiss event to Miami, Hong Kong and Paris have been led by a growth in the number of collectors; with the Middle East accounting for just 1 percent of global art sales, the project, staged with government agencies Qatar Sports Investments and QC+, has an alternative model, attracting sponsorship from Visit Qatar and Qatar Airways, something the art fair’s parent company MCH assesses will ‘boost profitability’ in itself (MCH is now back in slim profit after a long period in the red). Meanwhile Art Basel Paris took on its second edition with reported robust sales bucking market gloom; the company continued its partnership with Art Week Tokyo; and the fairs in Basel, Hong Kong and Miami, each responding to what Chief Artistic Officer and Global Director of Fairs de Bellis calls their ‘local contexts’, continued to do what they do.