The Only Way Out Is Through: The Third Line Turns Twenty

Twenty years ago, Dubai was just starting to say the word “art scene” out loud. In 2005, the city was a construction site of impossible promises, a “start-up city” that many doubted would ever find a cultural pulse.

And yet, in that same year, The Third Line opened its doors — a gallery that would go on to become one of the region’s most influential voices, shaping how contemporary art from the Middle East is seen, collected, and remembered

For its twentieth anniversary exhibition, curator Shumon Basar chose the phrase The Only Way Out Is Through. Online, it’s a meme, a mantra, a shrug at hardship. In Alserkal Avenue, it becomes something else: a way to look back at two decades of art, politics, and Dubai itself. The show threads together the gallery’s history with the region’s shifts and the world’s crises, from the financial crash of 2009 to the uprisings of 2011, from the COVID lockdowns to today’s polycrises

The Archive Speaks

The exhibition pulls heavily from The Third Line’s archive, much of it unseen until now. Works that once slipped quietly into storage re-emerge, reframed by time. Some artists look almost unrecognizable in their early experiments; others appear startlingly consistent, like they arrived fully formed. The show treats these works not as nostalgia, but as energy that’s been waiting to be released

Flashbacks and Flash Sales

In its early years, The Third Line was known for impromptu flash sales, a wink to friends in the know. That spirit is resurrected here: special works pulled from storage will appear in the gallery’s viewing room for just 48 hours at a time, grouped under themes like a disappearing Instagram story. Blink, and you’ll miss it

Mapping Two Decades

The exhibition divides the last twenty years into four “mini-epochs,” each marked by both art and context: the first rush of Dubai’s boom (2005–2009), the crash and the Arab uprisings (2010–2015), the move to Alserkal and the pandemic years (2016–2020), and the uneasy polycrises of today (2021–2025). A timeline etched across the gallery floor connects it all: art, politics, hashtags, heartbreaks

Stories, Not Just Objects

Beyond the works on the wall, The Only Way Out Is Through collects the oral history of The Third Line — conversations with artists, curators, and fellow travelers who’ve helped define what contemporary art in and from the Middle East can be. It’s a portrait of two decades, but also a blueprint for what comes next.

The Only Way Out Is Through: The Twentieth Line

Curated by Shumon Basar

18 September – 7 November 2025

More on TheThirdLine.com

cover: Shirin Aliabadi, Girls In Car 4, Color Photographic Print, 55.5 x 83 cm, 59 x 86 x 3 cm (framed), Edition of 3