Art in the Gulf
The Middle East proves yet again to be a fertile ground for art investments.
Earlier this year, Counting the Cost featured a story about Qatar’s wealth of art investments. As a follow-up about how much ongoing interest there is in art in the Gulf, we attended a Sotheby’s contemporary art auction in the region.
Works from the region have become increasingly sought after by collectors, with the “hottest things” including an Iranian painter in his 30s, a colonel in the Saudi army and a nonagenarian who was friends with Andy Warhol.
And the prices, like the art, were quite impressive. The whole auction achieved over $8m in sales, which was at the upper end of expectations, with record prices for 13 different artists.
Counting the Cost‘s Kamahl Santamaria met Sotheby’s Middle East director, Lina Lazaar.
“There is no recession in the art market at the moment, absolutely not. So being here in Doha is a much more in-depth strategy for us, really bringing the best of Middle Eastern and Western to the region and it has a much stronger educational component,” says Lazaar.