I was pretty excited to sell another painting the other day through Millwood Gallery in Thorndon - a nice positive sign in a climate filled with talk of recession. Business is good for Murray so he's keen to take a few more of my pieces - a lovely floral still life, a pastel sketch of the Grand Canal while I was in Venice and a landscape. Yay! Unlike other artists who churn out the same thing year after year I like to keep my work fresh by engaging in new techniques and subject matter. One artist who doesm't do this admitted that painting for him has got to the stage where it is paint by numbers - can't imagine there is much passion in that! Right from the start Murrray has been a great supporter of my work. When I first approached a gallery (after reading Julia Cameron's The Artists Way and summoning up courage the gallery I approached was really rude and told me my work was too "naive." Murray at Millwood loved them and took all three - promptly selling them too! Interestingly his business is still thriving and the other gallery has closed.

Art sales are booming in other parts of the world too - particularly in the Middle East. While up in Auckland last month I heard of several NZart galleries setting up shop over there.

I thought you may be interested to learn what's going on over there in case you want to get in on the action or just need a good news boost.


The Middle Eastern market – Sotheby’s arrives in Doha [Feb 09]
(source: http://web.artprice.com/ami/ami.aspx)

In August 2008, the Art Market Insight published an overview of the boom in Iranian art. The United Arab Emirates, the new eldorado of cultural tourism, is building its Louvre in Abu Dhabi and its Guggenheim in Dubai, the city that has established itself, in two years, as the new capital of the Middle Eastern art market. In 2008, auction revenues in Dubai amounted to USD 34.9 million, a +70% increase on 2007.

In the Middle East, the number of collectors has increased (investing, as a priority, in their compatriots) and the market has rapidly become international. Following its first auctions in Dubai in 2006, Christie’s has included a greater representation of modern and contemporary artists in the London and Paris sales. In 2008, Bonhams followed the lead set by Christie’s in opening a local branch, while Sotheby’s plans to follow suit in Doha.

The first Sotheby’s Doha contemporary art sale is planned for 18 March 2009, the opening day of the Art Dubai fair (18 to 21 March). In order to attract both local art lovers and international collectors, the auction house’s strategy is to mix leading Western contemporary art figures such as Andy WARHOL, Damien HIRST and Gerhard RICHTER with the fastest-growing Iranian artists in the market, Farhad MOSHIRI, Charles Hossein ZENDEROUDI and Mohammad EHSAI already having achieved fairly spectacular auction results during the 2008 first half.

Charles Hossein ZENDEROUDI of the 10 up for auction found favour with collectors despite the fact that the artist had exploded a pre-sale estimate of USD 20,000 in April 2008, setting a new sale record of USD 1.4 million (Tchaar-bagh, Christie’s Dubai).

Farhad MOSHIRI, has also been seriously bid up by collectors since 2006. Sotheby’s bought in its two Moshiri canvases at its London sale on 6 February 2009. On 18 March, Sotheby’s hopes to achieve USD 250,000 to 350,000 for Moshiri’s Diamond Head, the work featured on the cover of the catalogue. Will the highly symbolic nature of this work be enough to tempt collectors? It depicts a falcon, the iconic emblem of the Persian Gulf, crossed with the eagle, the more universal symbol of courage and strength. The head of the bird is adorned with the famous crystals often used by the artist. In March 2008, these same crystals were to ensure a new sale record of USD 900,000 for the work Eshgh (Love), compared with a pre-sale estimate of USD 200,000 (Bonhams, Dubai).

Amongst the other headline lots in the 18 March sale: a calligraphic composition by Mohammad EHSAI, estimated at between USD 300,000 and 400,000. The artist proved resilient during the autumn auction round, achieving sales of between USD 400,000 and 430,000 in Dubai followed by London and may benefit from the renewed confidence of market players (AMCI) whose buying intentions are very high (70% of voters).

In London, Charles Saatchi has opened his gallery to young Middle Eastern artists with a three-month exhibition Unveiled: New Art from the Middle East (30 January to 9 May). His trend-setting role can only be beneficial for Diana AL-HADID, Sara Rahbar and Marwan RECHMAOUI, who have yet to make their saleroom debuts.


The race for art island: Louvre and Guggenheim battle it out

Already, the giant of the art collection world, the Guggenheim Foundation, has signed up to build a museum in Abu Dhabi designed by the architect Frank Gehry that will open in 2012. Now, in a race of cultural brand names, the Louvre is attempting to beat them to it, with the leading French architect Jean Nouvel to create a new museum that will display works from the Louvre.

Abu Dhabi, which has more than 9% of the world's oil reserves, plans to make the museums the centrepiece of a £14.5bn cultural and financial quarter set on an island named Saadiyat, Arabic for "isle of happiness". There will be three other museums, luxury hotels and golf courses. But the government is aware that in its competition to lure tourists away from the shopping haven of Dubai, the Louvre could be the deciding factor. More than 7.5 million people trooped through its doors in Paris last year. Abu Dhabi is said to be prepared to pay Paris more than €750m (£500m) for the jewel in its cultural crown.

Delicate diplomatic negotiations to transport the Louvre to the Arab world have taken place for more than a year in Abu Dhabi and Paris, with the French daily Libération asking whether the project was the "most novel and controversial deal in the history of French cultural politics". Like the Guggenheim, French curators will not exhibit nudity or religious subjects likely to offend in the location. But some in the arts world say the deal is less to do with culture than political and economic interests, and France trying to flex its muscles on the international stage. Already, French curators are advising on the construction of an Islamic art museum in Qatar designed by I M Pei, who created the Louvre's glass pyramid.



Backstory

They were once little more than oil outposts in the desert, wealthy but remote, seven emirates bound together in a federation on the south-eastern tip of the Arabian peninsula. But the United Arab Emirates are fast reinventing themselves as a cultural and recreational hub, with tens of billions of dollars of investment transforming Abu Dhabi and Dubai in particular. Abu Dhabi, whose petrodollars give it one of the highest per capita incomes in the world, is styling itself as the cultural alternative to Dubai's more ritzy holiday and retail destination.

The emirates capital plans an "upscale cultural district" on Saadiyat, with the $400m Guggenheim museum part of a $27bn government-funded development that will include museums, a concert hall and art galleries alongside two golf courses, hotels and an "iconic 7-star property". The Dubai plans include indoor ski slopes, an underwater hotel, a $4bn theme park, and the elite island development known as The World.

Business is booming in NZ!
Check out Deanna Gracies’s order book – this amazing jewllery designer says business has never been so good. Her order book is jam packed. If you’re in the market for a custom designed work of art contact Deanna now before you have to go on a waiting list! Recession? What recession? There’s always a market for quality pieces of art that sets the soul ablaze with joy.

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Labels: architecture, Cultivating Creativity