This year, Oblong Contemporary Gallery once again is taking part in the annual DIFC Sculpture Park, an open-air art initiative that transforms plazas, walkways, and commercial spaces into a temporary museum without walls. By displaying works in such a highly frequented urban environment, the project encourages spontaneous encounters with art and strengthens Dubai’s reputation as a city where culture and commerce coexist.
Founded with locations in Dubai and Forte dei Marmi, Oblong Contemporary has built a profile around modern and contemporary art, with a particular emphasis on sculpture and collectable design. The gallery regularly collaborates with international artists and has participated in cultural projects, fairs, and outdoor exhibitions that place art directly into public settings. Its repeated involvement with the DIFC Sculpture Park demonstrates a curatorial interest in making sculpture accessible beyond the traditional gallery context.
For the fourth season of the DIFC Sculpture Park, Oblong Contemporary contributes the following works: Rhino Crack by Italian sculptor Stefano Bombardieri; Parallel Pillars by Dubai-based artist Hussain Jamil; and The Gold Dress, a painting by Catalan artist Manu Alguerò. These creatives represent distinct approaches to contemporary form-making that range from surreal figuration and environmental commentary to refined abstraction and cross-cultural visual language.
Stefano Bombardieri is celebrated for monumental bronze animals and psychologically charged installations. He frequently uses creatures such as rhinoceroses, elephants, gorillas, and whales as symbolic figures through which he examines themes of fragility, extinction, excess, and human responsibility toward nature. Bombardieri’s sculptures combine technical realism with subtle absurdity: a massive animal balanced on an impossible structure or a powerful beast rendered strangely vulnerable. This tension between strength and instability gives his work emotional depth and broad public appeal.
Placed in the context of DIFC, Bombardieri’s sculpture creates an intriguing contrast between the natural world and the built environment. The art piece invites reflection on ecology, urban expansion, and the uneasy relationship between progress and preservation.
Hussain Jamil brings a different sensibility to the sculpture park. Associated with a more lyrical and contemporary visual language, Jamil’s work often explores identity, memory, and material transformation. Whether through sculptural form, surface treatment, or spatial arrangement, his practice reflects an interest in how personal histories and cultural references can be translated into modern objects. In a city as cosmopolitan as Dubai, such themes resonate strongly. Visitors from varied backgrounds may find in Jamil’s work a meditation on belonging, movement, and the layering of experience that defines contemporary urban life.
The inclusion of Hussain Jamil also highlights Oblong Contemporary’s broader commitment to presenting artists whose work speaks to regional and international audiences alike. Rather than limiting itself to a single national school or style, the gallery has cultivated a roster that moves fluidly between Europe, the Middle East, and beyond.
Meanwhile, Manu Alguerò, best known for his painting practice (though he also works across other media, including sculpture), produces large-scale canvases charged with movement, texture, and vivid colour. His work is associated with “explosion painting,” a process in which controlled bursts of force propel pigment across the surface before the composition is further developed by hand. Alguerò’s paintings often balance abstraction with emerging faces or fragmented figures, suggesting psychological states, emotional release, and renewal.
In the context of the DIFC Sculpture Park, Alguerò’s presence is especially interesting because it expands the traditional definition of what an artist in a sculpture exhibition can represent. Though known foremost as a painter, his inclusion signals the increasingly fluid boundaries between disciplines in contemporary art. Artists today move between canvas, object, installation, and public intervention, bringing painterly energy into three-dimensional space. Thus, Alguerò’s contribution adds a dynamic, cross-medium perspective to the exhibition.
Taking part in the DIFC Sculpture Park 2026, Oblong Contemporary reflects Dubai’s growing role as a centre for international culture. Public art projects like this help shape the city’s identity by making art visible, accessible, and integrated into daily life. One may encounter sculpture on a lunch break or while moving between meetings, which allows unexpected moments of contemplation in a fast-paced urban setting.
Visitors to the DIFC Sculpture Park will be able to see the art pieces contributed by Oblong Contemporary until 30 June 2026. To learn more, please visit the gallery’s official website.
In addition, you may also be interested in viewing In the Wake of Time by RARARES Gallery and Guardian Elevation by Xavier Magaldi. We would also recommend that you read our article about several abstract sculptures in Dubai.
