First forays for Saudi art in international art market

SAUDI ART MARKET

A group of Saudi artists will appear for the first time at international auction at Christies April sale in Dubai. This follows the inaugural entry of Saudi Arabia to Art Dubai fair last month.

Lulwah Al Homoud

Christies:

Christie’s will be offering a selection of works by Saudi Arabian artists in their sale of International Modern and Contemporary Art that will be held on April 29 in Dubai.

This is the first time that a group of work from Saudi Arabia has been included in their international auction.

The sale will include works by six contemporary artists including Ahmed Mater Al Ziad Aseeri and Lulwah Al Homoud, reflecting the vibrancy of the Kingdom’s young artistic talent.

Michael Jeha, Managing Director of Christie’s Middle East said: We have noticed a significant increase in the number of buyers at our sales from the Middle East with 75 per cent of the Dubai art sale buyers last year from the region, up from an average of 50 per cent in previous years. With the introduction of this group of Saudi Arabian lots we are hoping to continue this trend and further extend the reach of the sales to collectors throughout the region.”

Emirates Business 24/7

Ahmed Mater

Art Dubai

Speaking at a packed press conference full of foreign journalists, Co-Founder and Director of Art Dubai John Martin said  “Among the 26 participating countries, Saudi Arabia has entered the show for the first time with a gallery display of Saudi-based artists,” he added.

Noha Al Sharif

The Jeddah-based Athr Gallery, which recently featured in the “Edge of Saudi Arabia” show in London, will present works by artists such as Shadia Alem, Lulwah Al-Homoud, Baseim Al-Shargi, Noha Al-Sharif, Abdullah Hammas, Ahmed Mater, Bakur Sheikhoon and Ayman Yusri.

Arab News

Related posts:

• Radar picks at Cairo Biennial – Dec 2008 –  Saudi artists on show at the Biennial

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Top three Middle Eastern art show treats in Dubai winter 2008

MIDDLE EASTERN ART

A quick glance at three interesting shows in Dubai this autumn throws up a plethora of talent.

 

Huda Lutfi

Huda Lutfi at The Third Line 13 November – 4 December 2008

One of Egypt’s most notable contemporary artists, Huda Lutfi presents her exhibition Zan’it Al-Sittat, an exploration into the city of Cairo, and more specifically, the visibility of women in Egyptian culture and society.

Both historian and artist, Lutfi is a bricoleur. She collects disparate images and manipulates them to re-invent her personal vision of Cairo, its histories and events. In doing so, Lutfi simultaneously comments on the political relevance of her home country, lifting old feminine icons from history and giving them new life by re-contextualising historic time lines, creating hybridised, timeless female figures.

Third Line Gallery

Khosrow Hassanzadeh at B21 11 November to 12 December 2008

Born to an Azerbaijani family in 1963 in Tehran , Khosrow Hassanzadeh spent most of his childhood in museums and cinemas – a refuge from the busy streets of Tehran , where he sold bananas to tourists near the National Museum of Iran. As a teenager he volunteered to fight on the Iran-Iraq front, not expecting that he would stay as a recruit for several years. When he came back from war, having escaped death, he chose a discipline that he always dreamt about: painting and poetry. Since then, Hassanzadeh has exhibited worldwide in leading art galleries and his works adorn the walls of several public collections such as the British Museum , London , The World Bank in Washington DC and the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art.

• B21 Gallery
• Khosrow Hassanzadeh website

 

Faisal Samra at XVA Gallery 27 October – 13 November 2008

‘I started out experimenting on another shape, another support on which to paint.’ Saudi artist Faisal Samra has pulled out pieces that he produced back in 2001 for this latest show. Moving away from a traditional canvas stretched two-dimensionally flat, Samra wraps his canvas around a wire mesh. The canvas itself wrinkles into a leathery skin-like form and, when hung, it takes on the slightly unnerving shape of a human torso. 

• XVA Gallery
• Faisal Samra website
• review and image Time Out

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