The Only Way Out Is Through: The Twentieth Line

The Only Way Out Is Through: The Twentieth Line is a project curated by Shumon Basar, marking the gallery’s 20th anniversary. Taking inspiration from the phrase often invoked in times of hardship—both as a mantra of endurance and a fatalistic admission of reality—The Only Way Out Is Through looks back on two decades of The Third Line’s story in relation to global cultural, political, and economic shifts through a retrospective exhibition, program of conversations, and “Flash Sales Specials”—a series of 48-hour pop-up sales of thematically grouped, long-unseen works from the gallery’s archive.

The Third Line was founded when contemporary art from the Middle East was yet to gain recognition internationally the way it has today. Similarly, Dubai was just beginning to assert itself as a centre for culture and commerce. In 2005, the city’s ambitions were often met with international skepticism. Twenty years on, however, Dubai has now become a focus for shaping postwestern cultural discourse. The Only Way Out Is Through: The Twentieth Line invites visitors to time travel—through the many trajectories of contemporary art from the region over the past two decades, but also through the crises that have shadowed it—and reflect on the complexities and contradictions that make up the early 21st century.

The exhibition component features artists currently represented by The Third Line, with early and recent works drawn from the gallery’s extensive two-decade archive—much of which has not been shown to the public. Many of the early works reveal how some artists’ practices have evolved over the years, while others show artists whose visual language and concerns emerged fully formed and have remained strikingly consistent.

Selected pieces are arranged into four chronological sections—2005 to 2009/ 2010 to 2015/ 2016 to 2020/ 2021to 2025—each contextualized by a timeline running across the gallery’s floors that delineates key political, economic, and cultural moments, ranging from the global financial crisis, through uprisings across the Arab world and the COVID-19 pandemic, to the present moment shaped by intersecting global crises. The exhibition opens and closes with statistical analytics that frame the narrative arc of the past two decades.

Artists include Abbas Akhavan, Ala Ebtekar, Amir H. Fallah, Anuar Khalifi, Bady Dalloul, Farah Al Qasimi, Farhad Moshiri, Fouad Elkoury, Hassan Hajjaj, Hayv Kahraman, Huda Lutfi, Joana Hadjithomas & Khalil Joreige, Jordan Nassar, Kamran Samimi, Laleh Khorramian, Lamya Gargash, Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian, Nima Nabavi, Pouran Jinchi, Rana Begum, Sahand Hesamiyan, Sara Naim, Sarah Awad, Shirin Aliabadi, Slavs and Tatars, Sophia Al-Maria, Tarek Al-Ghoussein, Vian Sora, yasiin bey, and Youssef Nabil.

The 20-year portrait of The Third Line is completed by a series of conversations with key protagonists from the gallery’s history. In celebrating the gallery’s 20-year journey, a tradition from its earlier years is resurrected as Flash Sales Specials, which will be announced via The Third Line’s social media platforms over the course of the exhibition.