Qatar is planning a huge international modern and contemporary art museum and will soon host its own Art Basel fair. Currently, the company is also preparing to build the largest full-service art warehousing and logistics facility in the Gulf region.
To build the new facility, QC+ acts as a strategic partner to Qatar Sports Investments (QSI) and Art Basel for the upcoming Art Basel Qatar show, working with logistics and supply chain provider Gulf Warehousing Company QPSC (GWC). The facility will provide art conservation, storage, conservation and viewing rooms.
Its location will be close to Hamad International Airport and within a designated free zone, meaning artworks can be stored and traded while legally remaining outside the country’s customs territory. Other such freeports include Geneva, Luxembourg, Singapore and the US state of Delaware. (Qatar has two main other industry free zones: Ras Bufontas Free Zone (Airport Free Zone) and Umm Alhoul Free Zone (Seaport Free Zone)).
In a statement, QC+ CEO Kirstin Mearns directly linked the development to Art Basel, noting that the fair and new facilities are signs of a mature art market. “The Bay is no longer an emerging art market,” she said. “As the announcement of Art Basel Qatar demonstrates, it is a global player,” GWC Acting Group CEO Matthew Kearns said in a separate statement. “This project represents a new benchmark for comprehensive arts infrastructure and creative economic growth in the region.”
A region’s growing art market is often accompanied by full-service storage facilities. South Korea has announced plans to host an event in 2023, a year after the launch of Frieze Seoul. The Doha facility is intended to serve the wider Gulf region, but there are currently no facilities of any size in the region. In her most recent article art news Regarding the state of the art market in the region, Melissa Gronlund reports that Dubai is negotiating to establish a free port, and Saudi gallery ATHR opened a high-specification art warehouse in May this year, which was built in partnership with German logistics company Hasenkamp.
