The Emergence of an Auction Category: Iranian Art at Christie’s Dubai, 2006–2016

Leili Sreberny-Mohammadi

doi:10.3390/arts10020035

Abstract

The expansion of the British auction houses Christie’s, Sotheby’s and Bonhams to markets in the Middle East has played a crucial role in building an international market for art from the region. They have also been essential in providing an international platform for the sale of art from Iran, a country whose economy is otherwise isolated from global markets. In this paper, I address the growth of the market for Iranian art specifically via Christie’s auctions in Dubai. Through close analysis of auction catalogs, ethnographic data drawn from live auctions and interviews with key staff members, I document the emergence of Iranian art into the international arena and the solidification of both Iranian and Middle Eastern art as a distinct category of sales. In particular, I explore the notion of “seeing with the other eye”, a way that auction specialists nudge local collectors into the arena of “international” taste. Through analysis of the particular tropes used to narrate artist biographies in auction catalogs, I demonstrate how artists are painted as interpreters and translators of “local” and “global” aesthetic registers.

Highlights

The expansion of the British auction houses Christie’s, Sotheby’s and Bonhams to markets in the Middle East has played a crucial role in building an international market for art from the region
Through analysis of the particular tropes used to narrate artist biographies in auction catalogs, I demonstrate how artists are painted as interpreters and translators of “local” and
2006 is considered the year that Middle Eastern art became more fully integrated into the global art market

Summary

Introduction

“Sold! Inside the World’s Biggest Auction House” is a documentary about Christie’s auction house broadcast on the BBC in 2016. I focus on this ten-year period as it provides a decade of data of Christie’s activity in the region, which was celebrated at the March 2016 sale This decade witnessed increased activity across the Emirati art world; during the era, the annual fair Art Dubai was established and numerous local galleries opened. At Christie’s April sale in 2008, Parviz Tanavoli’s sculpture, The Wall (Oh, Persepolis), achieved the highest price for any work auctioned in Dubai and was a world record for any Middle Eastern artist at the time. These watershed moments announced the commercial viability of the category of Iranian art in particular. Show a complicated network of different kinds of affiliations at the national, regional and international levels

The Titles of Auctions

Auction Catalogs as Artifacts

Making Taste “Global”

Auctions as Destabilizing

Findings

Conclusions