Inside the world of high-end Middle Eastern art sales

In the Middle East and abroad, contemporary Arab art has become a permanent fixture in galleries, private collectors’ homes and auction houses. No longer part of the shifting ephemera in the art world, Middle Eastern artists are consistently fetching high prices, though still only fair on the international market. Nowhere is this growth more notable than at the global auction house Christie’s in Dubai, with biannual cumulative sales in the league of $20 million for modern and contemporary Arab, Iranian and Turkish art.

The auction house heavyweight has set a pattern of continually breaking artist records, blazing a trail for emerging talent. Since its inception in 2005, Christie’s Dubai has sold more than $150 million in contemporary Middle Eastern art, bolstered by international participation in the sales. With this surge, Dubai has been christened the global center for the sale of Middle Eastern art.

In particular, the resilient creative pulses in countries such as Lebanon, Iran and Egypt have proven inexhaustible. Artistic infrastructure in the form of galleries, museums and art fairs has taken over these cultural landscapes. The awakened interest in Middle Eastern art has also been robustly supported by publications such as Canvas and Contemporary Practices, offering comprehensive coverage of art and culture in the Arab world.

With artists such as Mahmoud Said and Shafic Abboud now commanding soaring prices at auction, it seems that this trend might buoy the Arab art market for years to come. At a Christie’s Dubai sale in October, 19 new artist records were set. These included works by “Persian Picasso” Bahman Mohassess, the Egyptian Hamed Ewais, Palestinian Samia Halaby and Lebanon's Abboud. Regional family collections, artists’ estates and private collectors are shrewdly coming together and delivering prized pieces at auction lots. The market is ripe for these gestures, and the calculations have proven fruitful.