Iran's New Treasures Alongside the nuclear controversy, an art scene flourishes. Collectors are taking notice: Prices of Iranian contemporary art have jumped-- and they're likely to keep going up for another five or 10 years. How Westerners are getting on on the action.
2010-05-22 - by Daniel Grant | Source: Barron's
Putting New Faces on Islamic History
2010-05-18 - by Carol Kino | Source: The New York Times
ONE balmy evening this month, a glamorous crowd was packed into the tiny Leila Taghinia-Milani Heller Gallery on the Upper East Side for the opening of “Icons,” a show of video installations by the Iranian-born filmmaker Shoja Azari that runs through Friday.
It was his first solo show in New York, though Mr. Azari, 52, is no stranger to the high-end art world. The professional and romantic partner of the art star Shirin Neshat, he has been her primary collaborator on films and videos, including the feature “Women Without Men,” which opened in Manhattan on May 14. And Mr. Azari’s own multimedia installations have been increasingly showcased in galleries and museums around the world.
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Art: Icon's, Shoja Azari
2010-05-13 - by Dan Geist | Source: PBS.org: Tehran Bureau
To find the Shah, start dead center. Shift the gaze a foot and a half to the left, now eight inches down. There he is, a small framed black-and-white photo, licked by neverending flames. This is the still point of Coffee House Painting, centerpiece of Icons, an exhibition of the work of Shoja Azari on view at New York's Leila Taghinia-Milani Heller Gallery through May 27. (more)
Bonhams Votes for Iranian Art
2010-04-13 - by Kelly Crow | Source: The Wall Street Journal
During the recession, New York’s major auction houses didn’t include much work by Middle Eastern artists in their major sales of modern and contemporary art. One reason: prices for new stars like Farhad Moshiri had soared above $1 million during the boom but fell sharply as collectors pulled back.
Now, Bonhams is changing its tack. On May 11, the auctioneer plans to offer 20 pieces by modern and contemporary Iranian artists — whose works are priced to sell between $2,000 and $80,000 apiece — in its modern, contemporary and Latin American art sale to be conducted in New York and Los Angeles. Charlie Moore, a cataloguer, says the move is a bid to appeal to the Iranian diaspora in New York and Los Angeles. Moshiri is represented in the sale with his gold-leaf calligraphy work from 2005, “S19R,” priced to sell for at between $60,000 and $80,000. (Moore says similar works from the artist’s series were selling for up to $120,000 during the market’s peak.) (more)