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

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.

Islamic architecture in Tbilisi and Batumi: Muslim heritage in Georgia

Georgia’s cultural wealth is the result of the country’s centuries-old history and complex ethnic, religious and political relations. Islam, present in these areas since the seventh century, was of significant importance for the shaping of Georgian architecture. Architectural elements characteristic of Middle Eastern art were thus transferred to a Christian country. Arabs and Persians left behind buildings and ornamental details. The article is the result of field research carried out in Georgia, the purpose of which was to identify the issues of shaping and preserving memory and cultural and religious identity in the Muslim community. Georgian Muslim architecture is heavily neglected and requires increased protection, and above all significant financial resources that are difficult to obtain from a small number of Islamic communities. On the other hand, contemporary trends in Georgian architecture are realized and financed by Muslim businesses.

United States Economic Sanctions on Iran and Their Impacts on the Middle Eastern Art Market

The United States’ sanctions on Iran have limited the Iranian art market’s connections with the international art network. Galleries try to compensate for such limitations through online marketing and exhibition. Thus, the sanctions not only impact the form of marketing exerted by dealers but also directly influence the type of artistic production. Such changes also reshape the art market in the Arab states. The transition from tangible to intangible has become a strategy for the regional market to bypass the sanctions and develop business with the global collectors and institutions. A quantitative analysis was used to demonstrate the impact of the sanctions on the art market in Iran and the United Arab Emirates. This analysis examined all exhibitions in 12 commercial galleries in Tehran and Dubai from 2009 to 2019, statistically assessing the index of changes over this period and calculating the variations, particularly during the years of intensified sanctions. The study indicates how the propensity of galleries for a digitally networked economy is becoming a solution to reduce the impacts of the sanctions in order for the galleries to maintain their clientele of international collectors and dealers.

How brand visual aesthetics foster a transnational imagined community

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate how visual aesthetic referents used in branding can help foster a transnational imagined community (TIC). The authors use brands embedded with Middle Eastern visual aesthetics as a research context. As such, the study aims to examine how Middle Eastern non-figurative art is used by non-Middle Eastern brands to foster an imagined Middle Easternness. Design/methodology/approach Through a critical visual analysis, the authors apply a visual social semiotic approach to Middle Eastern art canons to better understand the dimensions of transnational imagined communities. Findings The study finds and discusses six sub-dimensions of Middle Easternness, which compose two overarching dimensions of TIC, namely, temporal and spatial. These sub-dimensions provide brand managers and designers with six different ways to foster transnational imagined communities through the use of visual aesthetic referents in branding. Research limitations/implications This research identifies the specific visual sub-dimensions of brands that enable transnational communities to be imagined. Practical implications Understanding the visual aesthetic sub-dimensions in this study provides brand managers with practical tools that can help develop referents that foster transnational imagined communities in brand building to achieve competitive advantage and reach a transnational segment. Originality/value Prior studies have primarily focussed on how visual aesthetics help in understanding issues related to national identity. In contrast, this paper examines the use of visual aesthetics in branding from a transnational perspective.

How French is frenkçin?

It is by no means unknown, in Middle-Eastern art-music traditions, to find claims that a given rhythmic cycle was invented on a particular occasion by a particular musician, the most obvious and reliable instance being provided by ‘Abd al-Qādir al-Marāġī (d. 1435), who tells us that he was commissioned to create a new cycle to commemorate a victory. With frenkçin, then, a cycle where the very name clearly suggests some form of western derivation or inflection, it was perhaps only to be expected that we should encounter a similar narrative that pinpointed its origin, associating its creation with the impulse provided by a particular cultural encounter with the West. It has to be said, though, that no such account appears as a standard feature of the contemporary theoretical discourse surrounding Turkish art music: works that deal with the rhythmic cycles tend to be expository catalogues unconcerned with origins and derivations, and it is only in one major modern reference work that we come across the notion of western inspiration, together with a tentative suggestion as to the period during which frenkçin emerged. The detailed narrative of origin certainly first appears in a text by an eminent Turkish scholar, but it is one written in French—the comprehensive survey article by Rauf Yekta Bey published in 1922—and possibly in consequence it has so far been relayed primarily in western languages. The discussion by Kösemihal, the one significant Turkish scholar to have accepted this account, appears to have had little impact, and it remains to be seen whether the relatively recent translation of Rauf Yekta Bey's article into Turkish will stimulate renewed interest in this version in Turkey itself.