From the Ground Up: What Does It Take to Build an Art Market?

Lessons from gallerists Mohammed Hafiz, Isabelle de Caters and Sadie Coles at Art Basel Qatar 2026 — and what they mean for anyone building something new.

Artwork by Stephen Anthony Davids.

In February 2026, Art Basel opened its first ever edition in Qatar. Across two venues in Msheireb Downtown Doha, galleries were limited to solo presentation. One gallery, one artist.. No first-day sales announcements. Something different.

As part of the Art Basel Conversations × Qatar Creates series, a talk was held that felt especially relevant to us: From the ground up: What does it take to build an art market? Moderated by Coline Milliard, Executive Editor at Art Basel, the panel brought together three gallerists with very different but deeply instructive stories: Mohammed Hafiz, Co-founder and CEO of ATHR Gallery in Jeddah; Isabelle de Caters, gallerist based in Dubai for over two decades; and Sadie Coles, one of London's most respected art dealers.

Between them, they have watched nascent markets grow from nothing. Here is what they said, and what it means for anyone trying to build something from scratch:

1. Start Somewhere. Start Small.

Every gallerist on the panel had a story about a beginning that looked nothing like where they are now. Isabelle de Caters started in a space in Brussels she called "20 square metres of contemporary art" (not a metaphor, the literal name and size). Mohammed Hafiz launched ATHR Gallery in Jeddah at a time when Saudi Arabia didn't even offer tourist visas, meaning the only way to share their artists with the world was to go out and find it themselves.

The message here wasn't that starting small is romantic. It's that starting is the only way. The market doesn't exist until someone decides to build it.

2. Build the Audience, Not Just the Work

Isabelle described an artist she worked with who returned to Dubai after studying in London, full of ideas about conceptual art and contemporary practice, only to find there were barely two art books in the entire local library. His challenge wasn't just making work. It was creating the conditions in which that work could be understood and received.

This is one of the most underestimated parts of building any cultural market: audience development. A gallery, a platform, a project; none of it sustains itself without people who are educated, curious and engaged enough to participate. That work falls to the gallerist as much as it does to the artist.

Building a market means building the people who will be part of it.

3. Position the Gallery As a Translator

Sadie Coles was clear about what she sees her role to be: a translator between the artist's studio and the wider world. Not a gatekeeper. Not a middleman. A communicator. As a gallerist it’s your job to take the excitement and intention of an artist's practice and make it land in a room with a collector, a curator, a critic.

She described it as throwing a rock in a pond. You put something into the world and you hope the ripples keep growing. The gallery is the arm that throws. The artist is the rock. The relationship between the two, built on trust, study and long-term commitment is what makes the ripple mean something.

Every person who presents art to the public in any form is a translator. The question is whether you're doing it authentically.

4. Fill the Gap the Institutions Leave

One of the most interesting observations of the panel came from Isabelle, speaking about Dubai's early gallery scene. With no museums to speak of, the galleries became the museums. They became the spaces where culture was debated, where new work was seen first, where artists found their public. The gallery didn't wait for the institution. It became one.

This is a model with real resonance for anyone building in an underserved space. If the institution that should exist doesn't exist yet — whether that's a museum, a gallery, a platform, a publisher — the gap is not an obstacle. It's an invitation.

Be the institution you don't have. That's what we're trying to do here at the Lemon Seed Project.

5. Stay Rooted. Go Global

Mohammed Hafiz spoke about the tension and the necessity of being deeply rooted in your own context whilst engaging with the global conversation. ATHR Gallery was built on Saudi culture, Saudi artists, Saudi stories. That specificity wasn't a limitation. It was the reason the world paid attention.

He also noted something important: when ATHR took its programme to international art fairs, it changed the way people at home perceived the gallery. External validation fed back into local credibility. The global conversation and the local one are not separate. They inform each other.

The most powerful cultural voices are usually the most specific ones. Specificity is not niche, it's strength.

6.Patience Is the Name of the Game

Mohammed said it plainly. Sadie quoted it back at the very end of the panel as the single piece of advice she'd pass on. Patience.

Not passivity. Not waiting. But a long-term commitment to building something real, artist by artist, collector by collector, conversation by conversation. The gallerists on this panel have been doing this for decades. They are still learning. They are still excited. That's what patience in this industry actually looks like.

Art markets are not built overnight. They are grown.

7. Once You're In, You're In for Life

Perhaps the most honest thing said on the panel: Mohammed wished someone had warned him how addictive this world is. Sadie agreed. The artists, the ideas, the conversations, the constant discovery: it pulls you in and doesn't let go. That's not a warning. That's the whole point. If you're building something in the art world, build it with that in mind because the people you want around you, the artists, collectors and collaborators who will make it mean something, they feel it too.

A Final Reflection

For anyone trying to build an art market: start before the conditions are perfect.

Invest in audiences as much as artists.

Act as a bridge between studio and public.

Fill the gaps where institutions don’t yet exist.

Stay rooted in place, but think internationally.

And above all, be patient. Real markets are built over time.