"For a week, the country's premier-and only-auction house Tehran Auction displayed 120 works of art by Iran's most prized Modern and contemporary artists in one of the hotel's upper floors. On 4 October, they sold for 134 trillion Iranian toman, or $1.5m minus fees, a paradoxically strong showing for the art market in a country that is barred from all international banking transactions, has run out of drinking water, and cannot import enough medicine."
"In central London a few weeks later, works by Iranian Modern and contemporary artists went under the hammer at Sotheby's and Christie's. It was their weakest showing in years, continuing a slowdown in the prices for Iranian art in the West, as diametrically-opposed markets have risen for the same commodity. Sanctions, geopolitics and cultural tastes have produced a closed, booming market in Iran and a sluggish, stagnant market in the rest of the world."
The Azadi Hotel, built in the 1970s as the Hyatt Crown Tehran, sits above a city reeling from a June bombing campaign that prompted mass displacement. In October, the hotel hosted a weeklong Tehran Auction exhibition of 120 Modern and contemporary Iranian works that sold for 134 trillion toman (about $1.5m). Iran faces international banking bans, acute water and medicine shortages, high inflation (45%) and low GDP growth (1.59%), yet collectors in Iran continue to spend heavily. By contrast, sales of Iranian art at Sotheby's and Christie's in London showed notable weakness, reflecting diverging domestic and international markets driven by sanctions, geopolitics and shifting tastes.
Read at The Art Newspaper - International art news and events
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