Abu Dhabi’s The National covers the emerging market for Pakistani art which happens to be have a significant ex-pat community in neighboring Dubai. Here they talk to Pakistani
“Contemporary art has really come up in a big way in Pakistan. I see it in the gallery. People really want to acquire art now,” said Noshaba Qadir, curator of the Tanzara Gallery in Islamabad. “Even those with little art appreciation, or people who couldn’t afford it before, now want a piece or two in their homes.”
With interest comes hype and the dealers are making breathless claims based on recent price rises:
Values have trebled in the past five years, according to the director of the Artchowk.com website, Camilla Chaudhary. One of the emerging artists her website represents, Mansur Salim, has seen his prices triple in the last two years. […] “If an investor does some research on the local art scene and buys a good emerging artist he can expect a 100 to 300 per cent profit, while for an established artist he can see a 50 to 75 per cent increase depending on the artist.” Eighty per cent of the work that sold at ArtChowk’s first exhibition in the Middle East a year and a half ago has doubled in value, she added. […]
These days a handful of Pakistani artists command major international recognition and global price-tags as high as $500,000, such as Rashid Rana. Mohammad Talpur’s hypnotic arrangements of lines have captured international collectors’ imaginations and command well over $10,000. Shazia Sikander, a graduate of Lahore’s National College of the Arts, now based in the US, produces modern miniatures which are fetching huge prices in the US and have won the attention of the avid modern art collector Bill Gates. […]
The Pakistani diaspora in Dubai are major investor customers. One Dubai-based client turned up to the Tanzara Gallery with floor plans for his under-construction apartment and asked Mrs Qadir to select 22 paintings for its walls. Installations and video art are now entering the market.
Pakistani Contemporary Art Trebles in Value Over Five Years (The National)
