RAMEN FREY AND WENDI NORRIS OF FREY NORRIS GALLERY, SAN FRANCISCO, DISCUSS WHAT TO EXPECT AT ART DUBAI 2010

Kate Eric, Image Courtesy of Frey Norris Gallery,
San Francisco, USA

“The region is attractive because of its role as an economic, geographical and cultural crossroads. I particularly appreciate the cosmopolitan openness of Dubai. Curiosity about differing perspectives always bodes well for art. This will be our second year – last year was a success for our business as well as a wonderful time.

Last year we were pleasantly surprised by the powerful response to Kate Eric’s art, a nationally recognised San Francisco based artist couple. They collaborate mostly on intricate paintings, though they also work in sculpture and installation. Some visitors pointed out a resonance with historical Persian painting and an appreciation for the artists’ take on conflicts within nature. We sold all the work we brought and left with a pre-paid waiting list for a number of additional pieces. Collectors, curators and regional galleries all shared their admiration and interest.

This year we are bringing a fresh body of work, including the largest canvas Kate Eric have yet completed. These paintings will contrast nicely with photo-sculptures by Korean artist Koh Myung Keun. The photo-sculptures are assembled from high-resolution transparencies, mostly photos of elemental scenes, water, fire, grasslands or forests, using a heat welding technique. The result is a luminous and ghostly almost weightless object that light passes through, juxtaposing the same image or varying images over one another. This transposition shifts as a visitor walks around the piece. Koh’s eye for transcendence and innovation in inventing photo sculptures as a medium (he holds a patent) set him apart from any other artists I know working with photography today.

We have always been attracted to the self-evident talent of artists from these regions. The gallery is very grateful to represent Iraqi artist Hayv Kahraman in the United States, one of the most talented and promising painters from the Middle East, and it has been a great pleasure to collaborate with The Third Line Gallery in supporting what will certainly be a major career. We will be hosting her American debut solo exhibition in May 2010.

We’ve sponsored the American debuts for a number of important artists from Pakistan, China, Korea and Japan, including Zhong Biao, Mudassar Manzoor and Koh Myung Keun. In November, 2010, we will host the American debut of one of the most celebrated painters in India, Surendran Nair, a painter who mines numerous veins of Greek theater, myth and Indian religiosity, revealing an ongoing parade of intricate characters who shed light on controversial modern themes. No artist I can think of has so much in common with the contemporary literary giants of India.

I have little doubt that artists from Asia and the Middle East are going to rise in international stature consistently over the next several decades.

As for the regional art market, I would expect to continue to see false starts, great booms of speculative interest followed by market crashes and cynicism. Inevitably these peaks and valleys presage the development of a mature cultural class of supporters in the region, artists, art professionals, collectors and critics who will provide the structure and continuity necessary to allow art in the Middle East and Asia to flourish. Some will be flashes in the pan, but in some cases they will inflect the global history of art and ideas.

Globally, the art market is much bigger than ten years ago and still growing, though not always for the most sustainable or noble of reasons. Markets ironically mature as serial collectors realise that the greatest benefits to be derived from the art they own come not so much from a potential financial return, but rather from a far richer perspective on the human predicament.

In blackjack they sometimes say, “a push is a win”. This essentially is a tie with the dealer. In the case of 2009, I think some of the best galleries in the world were happy to “push”. Many galleries have closed, placing those left standing in a strong position to benefit from the next few years of growing interest in art.

My impression, from speaking with friends and what I’ve read in publications like The Economist and online media is that Dubai is by definition a place that flirts with cycles of boom and bust. I come from California, and particularly the San Francisco Bay Area, another gravitational centre for speculation and boom/bust cycles. The Bay Area is a melting pot of cultural émigrés and I.T. and biotech innovations. We have a number of venture capital friends who regularly take the direct Emirates flight from SFO to Dubai. So, long term, I think that the Emirates will continue to be an exciting place to do business, attracting the sorts of people we would like to meet from around the world, risk-takers and culture lovers, interesting people. The recent Dubai crisis won’t be the last time the emirate will be written off as a failed economic experiment, but my gut tells me that, like Hong Kong, it will thrive in the long term.

Art Dubai is different compared to other contemporary art fairs but also the same. Our experiences around the world are collapsing into one another, so that every year we see more and more of the same “art people” in San Francisco, New York, Miami, Dubai, London and Hong Kong. The Dubai fair has a self-calibrating curatorial perspective that emphasizes the MENASA region. My hope would be that the fair can find room for more controversial artists and projects in the future, art that constructively addresses regional cultures in ways that aren’t necessarily comfortable.”


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