Ask people to describe the cultural panorama of the United Arab Emirates and they are likely to conjure up images of Abu Dhabi’s pharaonic franchises of Western museums emerging amid seas of imported laborers. Dig a bit deeper and some will muster a thought about the Sharjah Biennial, the 22-year-old cavalcade of mostly discreet political art nestled in a staunchly conservative enclave. Art Dubai, the signature art fair of what it calls the “MENASA region,” unfolding yearly in the shadow of Dubai’s poster child hotel—the über-starred, sail-shaped Burj al-Arab—will certainly ring a bell. And the particularly seasoned visitor may convincingly portray Dubai’s gallery scene and its ebullient expansionism. Almost everyone you canvas will evoke censorship, ostentation, dubious labor laws and a soulless money-buys-everything worldview. No one will utter a word about artists.