The Art Newspaper

Christie’s manages expectations at its sixth sale in Dubai

By Antonia Carver. Published online: 27 May 2009

DUBAI. Christie’s sixth auction in Dubai of international modern and contemporary art, mainly Middle Eastern, totalled $4.7m, a far cry from the $20m the auction house achieved at the peak of this emerging market in spring 2008. Christie’s strategy of imposing low estimates and limiting the number (and, apparently, even size) of works resulted in active, workmanlike bidding. The sale was 77% sold by lot and 85% by value.

“The prices are realistic now, the quality good, and the cowboys have left. This settling down is beneficial in the long term,” said Emirati collector Ibrahim Belselah, who saw off phone bidders to buy Iranian modern master Abolghassem Saidi’s triptych Trees, 1982, one of the few large-scale paintings offered, for $146,500 (est. $80,000-$110,000), a world record for the artist. The top lot was Parviz Tanavoli’s bronze sculpture The Wall and the Script, 2007, which sold for $218,500 (est. $120,00-$180,000).

“It’s encouraging that expectations are more grounded, and people are actively bidding, but there are fewer ‘wow’ works,” said one Dubai-based dealer. He added: “If they weren’t selling at these prices, it would be catastrophic.”

The 29 April sale was dominated by the Dubai-based Iranian, Emirati and Lebanese collectors who have supported this young market over the past three years, but who had begun to take more of a backseat in the face of steep price rises and international speculators. (Indeed, the effervescent May 2008 sale attracted the likes of super-collectors Steve Cohen and Charles Saatchi, bidding on Iranian work, while a Dubai-based collector snapped up a Robert Indiana LOVE sculpture for $1m.)

Christie’s emphasised after the sale that buyers hailed from 12 countries, but the market has closed ranks during the financial crisis, with 72% of buyers from the Middle East, and the focus of the sale on modern art from the region. Despite a fall in prices, especially for artists such as Charles Hossein Zenderoudi, whose stock had risen sharply over the past three years, Iranian masters remain popular; seven of the top ten lots were Iranian.

One of only two non-Middle Eastern works in the sale, Marc Quinn’s Banks of the Tiber, 2008, sold on the phone to a European dealer for $128,500 (est. $120,000-$180,000).

Christie’s strategy of broadening the market within the region continued: besides some Turkish paintings, specialist William Lawrie had sourced contemporary works from Saudi Arabia, represented at auction for the first time. These ranged from an installation of tissue boxes printed with scenes from old Egyptian movie posters (Maharem, 2006-07, by Ayman Yossri Daydban) to soldier-artist Abdulnasser Gharem’s Concrete, 2008, made from 87,151 rubber stamps. Five of the six lots sold, all above their estimates, totalling $63,750.

Many of the works had been sourced from American and European collections, including that of Dr Rudolf Fechter, German ambassador to Syria in the early 1960s; Syrian and other collectors bid furiously on Fateh Moudarres’s The Icons of Moudarres, 1962, ($98,500, est. $30,000-$40,000). A Dubai-based gallerist commented that while Middle Eastern artists and collectors with a long-term interest are reluctant to consign at this time, westerners who bought in the 1970-80s are still able to make a tidy profit on their original, nominal investments.

Christie’s representatives in Dubai actively work the local arts scene and take part in charity auctions, and their efforts appear to be paying off, at least in the Middle Eastern market. Bonhams’s second art sale in Dubai in November 2008 totalled $2.8m and was 50% sold. For its spring sale (11 May 2009), it switched its focus to Orientalist art. Sotheby’s opted to make Qatar its base (rather than the UAE capital Abu Dhabi); its inaugural sale in March this year was a major disappointment (The Art Newspaper, April 2009).