Charles Saatchi, the iconoclastic art collector, is in talks to open a gallery in the United Arab Emirates, in the latest sign of the booming desert region’s race to create a cultural hub in the Middle East.

Mr Saatchi told the FT he had turned down offers from the Gulf and venture capital groups to buy his Saatchi Online site, a social networking site for the art world. However, he is understood to have held talks with three potential partners in Dubai and elsewhere in the Gulf about investing in an Arabic-language version of Saatchi Online.