I’ve left the naturally odorous shores of Bombay for the manmade ones in the Emirates, and not a moment too soon. This week marked ArtDubai, the city’s annual international art fair which, because of its location and credit limit, has quickly become the most high-profile art event this side of Turkey (apparently Dhaka has begun hosting a good one too, but I am less inclined to negotiate Bangladeshi traffic).
An art fair is not my favorite fair – it’s like a really exhausting farmers’ market with conceptual work instead of expensive carrots – but it does serve as an indicator of what people think is hot right now. Miles upon miles of booths and stalls are crammed with every gallery you’ve ever heard of and then some, showing artists from across the globe. The single underlying agenda is, in a word, commerce. Given that commerce is Dubai’s raison d’etre, you can probably guess how over-the-top the whole thing can get. I loved it.
The funniest part about ArtDubai was how many different VIP openings it had. Though the event’s official opening was on the 19th, parties and lectures began on the 14th in Doha, where a bunch of bigwig curators and artists serenaded the Sheikha, the It Woman of Art (she buys lots and lots of art and, thankfully, also has a good eye). They then flew en mass to Dubai around the 17th for more VIP parties until, exhausted, they made way for the regular folk who attended on the days advertised.
[quote]The "up yours" rich don't attend the fair at all - the best art is taken to their palaces[/quote]
I first attended on the evening of the 18th, a VIP event that was so crowded I couldn’t find seating (I returned the following two days because you never go to an opening to look at art, only people). Chuffed at having made it inside, my enthusiasm dampened only slightly when I was told that this was the third “opening” on just that day. Apparently the royals and uber-people came in the afternoon, so as not to touch the plebs during some of their art shopping. I imagine only mythical creatures attended the morning event (the “up yours” rich don’t attend the fair at all – the best art is taken to their palaces, obvs).
As you entered the fair a large man scanned your card while looking you up and down in a way that implied you should have spent more on your shoes. When you walked in through the doors, you saw a long corridor filled with rich men and trophy wives in skyscraper heels, walking around Cartier “pop-up shops” with bubbling glasses of champagne and more diamonds than a Faberge winter egg. Following the ant line of designer footwear, I walked into the little VIP lounge, a small chamber with white sofas, an open bar and some seriously tasty Parmesan-based appetizers. Hypnotized by the rampant air-kissing, long legs and French accents of everyone around me, it took me about two hours to remember that I was here to look at some art.
The fair was divided into three parts. Two large warehouse-size halls hosted all the contemporary art, and a third hall in the bowels of a neighboring hotel was the Modern Room (lots of Sadequains and M.F Hussains, as ever). The contemporary rooms were quite good. The first thing I saw in Hall 1 was a series by a talented Pakistani artist called Murad Khan. His work was based on the Pak passport. The sighting foretold the sheer number of amazing Pakistani artworks (and artists) I would see inside at various booths. There was Rashid Rana talking to some curators, a little beyond some large pieces by Waqas Shah (very-up-and-coming, he does large circles made of smaller pen marks, look him up) and to the right was Shahzia Sikander standing in front of a large (brilliant) watercolor and speaking to some Germans who were looking at her adoringly.
Despite the many Pakistani artists I saw there, I didn’t see a single gallery from the country. This isn’t surprising per se, since art fair booths can go up to $20,000 for the three days, but it was still depressing. While chatting to an Indian curator friend, I was told the booth with Rashid Rana’s three large works (it is unusual for a booth to show only one artist) was actually a joint-project by two of India’s biggest galleries. They did not bring an Indian artist, which my friend found strange but I found telling.
[quote]None of the art was shocking or life-changing[/quote]
The only issue I have with ArtDubai is the same issue I tend to have with Dubai as a whole. In a place that is an enforced mirage of “first world light”, the art fair is part of an attempt to buy culture wholesale. Given the nation’s strict policies of censorship of anything that isn’t light and frothy, you can imagine that none of the art was shocking or life-changing. Mostly abstract, it stays away from anything religious, figurative, critical, irreverent or controversial (though this year, unlike the last, they didn’t have a display of a sheikh’s nature photography – small mercy).
It’s a strange market too. The pretense that exists in the rest of the art fairs of the world – that it’s the work that matters – here is replaced by the boldfaced admission that people just want to decorate their homes. It becomes about color, brand name and sellability, rather than any kind of philosophy, and in that way reminds me of the Indian Art market, where price creates prestige rather than the other way around.
I don’t want to imply that there wasn’t some thought-provoking work at ArtDubai, just that it was usually there despite that fact rather than because of it.
Write to thekantawala@gmail.com and follow @fkantawala on twitter
An art fair is not my favorite fair – it’s like a really exhausting farmers’ market with conceptual work instead of expensive carrots – but it does serve as an indicator of what people think is hot right now. Miles upon miles of booths and stalls are crammed with every gallery you’ve ever heard of and then some, showing artists from across the globe. The single underlying agenda is, in a word, commerce. Given that commerce is Dubai’s raison d’etre, you can probably guess how over-the-top the whole thing can get. I loved it.
The funniest part about ArtDubai was how many different VIP openings it had. Though the event’s official opening was on the 19th, parties and lectures began on the 14th in Doha, where a bunch of bigwig curators and artists serenaded the Sheikha, the It Woman of Art (she buys lots and lots of art and, thankfully, also has a good eye). They then flew en mass to Dubai around the 17th for more VIP parties until, exhausted, they made way for the regular folk who attended on the days advertised.
[quote]The "up yours" rich don't attend the fair at all - the best art is taken to their palaces[/quote]
I first attended on the evening of the 18th, a VIP event that was so crowded I couldn’t find seating (I returned the following two days because you never go to an opening to look at art, only people). Chuffed at having made it inside, my enthusiasm dampened only slightly when I was told that this was the third “opening” on just that day. Apparently the royals and uber-people came in the afternoon, so as not to touch the plebs during some of their art shopping. I imagine only mythical creatures attended the morning event (the “up yours” rich don’t attend the fair at all – the best art is taken to their palaces, obvs).
As you entered the fair a large man scanned your card while looking you up and down in a way that implied you should have spent more on your shoes. When you walked in through the doors, you saw a long corridor filled with rich men and trophy wives in skyscraper heels, walking around Cartier “pop-up shops” with bubbling glasses of champagne and more diamonds than a Faberge winter egg. Following the ant line of designer footwear, I walked into the little VIP lounge, a small chamber with white sofas, an open bar and some seriously tasty Parmesan-based appetizers. Hypnotized by the rampant air-kissing, long legs and French accents of everyone around me, it took me about two hours to remember that I was here to look at some art.
The fair was divided into three parts. Two large warehouse-size halls hosted all the contemporary art, and a third hall in the bowels of a neighboring hotel was the Modern Room (lots of Sadequains and M.F Hussains, as ever). The contemporary rooms were quite good. The first thing I saw in Hall 1 was a series by a talented Pakistani artist called Murad Khan. His work was based on the Pak passport. The sighting foretold the sheer number of amazing Pakistani artworks (and artists) I would see inside at various booths. There was Rashid Rana talking to some curators, a little beyond some large pieces by Waqas Shah (very-up-and-coming, he does large circles made of smaller pen marks, look him up) and to the right was Shahzia Sikander standing in front of a large (brilliant) watercolor and speaking to some Germans who were looking at her adoringly.
Despite the many Pakistani artists I saw there, I didn’t see a single gallery from the country. This isn’t surprising per se, since art fair booths can go up to $20,000 for the three days, but it was still depressing. While chatting to an Indian curator friend, I was told the booth with Rashid Rana’s three large works (it is unusual for a booth to show only one artist) was actually a joint-project by two of India’s biggest galleries. They did not bring an Indian artist, which my friend found strange but I found telling.
[quote]None of the art was shocking or life-changing[/quote]
The only issue I have with ArtDubai is the same issue I tend to have with Dubai as a whole. In a place that is an enforced mirage of “first world light”, the art fair is part of an attempt to buy culture wholesale. Given the nation’s strict policies of censorship of anything that isn’t light and frothy, you can imagine that none of the art was shocking or life-changing. Mostly abstract, it stays away from anything religious, figurative, critical, irreverent or controversial (though this year, unlike the last, they didn’t have a display of a sheikh’s nature photography – small mercy).
It’s a strange market too. The pretense that exists in the rest of the art fairs of the world – that it’s the work that matters – here is replaced by the boldfaced admission that people just want to decorate their homes. It becomes about color, brand name and sellability, rather than any kind of philosophy, and in that way reminds me of the Indian Art market, where price creates prestige rather than the other way around.
I don’t want to imply that there wasn’t some thought-provoking work at ArtDubai, just that it was usually there despite that fact rather than because of it.
Write to thekantawala@gmail.com and follow @fkantawala on twitter