Georgina Adam has her report on Art Dubai:

“Candy Garden” (2013) by the Portuguese Joana Vasconcelos sold for €70,000 to a local expatriate, and a photograph by Valérie Belin, “Pieris Japonica” (2013), went for €30,000 to a European collector, both from Nathalie Obadia’s stand. A work by the artist duo Gert and Uwe Tobias went to a Saudi Arabian collector for $38,000 (with Rodolphe Janssen of Brussels), and Marian Goodman sold two paintings by the German-born painter Sabine Moritz (prices between €10,000 and €20,000).

Artnet provides early sales from Art Dubai last week:

Grovesnor Gallery sold Winter Blue (1968), a minimal sculpture by Rasheed Araeen for around US$60,0000

Agial Art Gallery sold a 1952 bronze sculpture by Michel Basbous for between US$20,000-30,000

Tunisian Galerie El-Marsa sold five pictures by Algerian painter Baya to collectors from the US and the UAE.

Dubai’s Third Line reported strong sales, including a black-and-white picture made with beads embroidered on canvas, The Great Escape (2014) by Iranian artist Farhad Moshiri. It went to a European collector for US$200,000

London’s Pilar Corrias sold a new painting, Ink Splatter (2013), by the rising star Tala Madani for US$80,000 to a known collector from Europe.

Bouchra Khalili also fared well. Two of her photographs from the Lost Boats series sold at the booth of her Paris dealer Galerie Polaris for US$7,650 and $6,250 respectively.

Galleria Continua, which has outposts in San Gimignano, Beijing, and Le Moulin Ste Marie, reported several sales, including works by Michelangelo Pistoletto and Mona Hatoum.

Paris’s Galerie Nathalie Obadia sold a sculpture by Portuguese Joana Vasconcelos, Candy Garden (2013) for around €70,000 (US$97,450).

Chicago painter Sam Moyer attracted much attention at the booth of the Belgian Galerie Rodolphe Janssen, with Untitled, 2014 selling for €12,000 (US$16,706).

Paradise Row noted much enthusiasm for the works of the Royal College of Art graduate Majed Aslam. Two of his painterly erased printouts, priced at £2,500 (US$4,150) each, sold during the opening.

Selma Feriani was delighted to report the sales of two pieces by the Lebanese Pascal Hachem (US$4,000-6,000 range)

The Art Market: Art crowd gather by the Gulf (Financial Times)

Art Dubai Opens With Steady Sales, Mostly Under $100,000 (Artnet News)

• Beirut-based gallery The Running Horse selling 14 works by Alfred Tarazi (prices from $2,000 to $12,000).
• London-New Delhi partnership Grosvenor Vadehra sold Syed Sadequain’s Couple in an Entrance, 1958, for $200,000
• Paris-based Nathalie Obadia clocked up ten sales in the first two days, including Joana Vasconcelos’s bright felt wall-sculpture Montmartre, 2011, for $92,500.

At Design Days Dubai,

• Carpenters Workshop, who reported placing Random International’s light piece, Swarm, 2011, for $210,000, as well as a raft of other sales.
•  Seomi only sold one work—Myung Sun Kang’s Mermaid Stool, 2011, for $55,000.

Art Dubai Keeps Strong Regional Identity (The Art Newspaper)

• Traffic Gallery of Dubai reported 40 works sold for a total of more than $100,000. One of Ahmed Mater’s “Evolution of Man” series (2010) was bought by a Saudi collector for $30,000 just before the fair opened. The light-box work shows a gasoline pump morphing into the X-rayed skeleton of a human holding a gun to his head.
• Aidan Gallery of Moscow sold a work from Aladdin Garunov’s “Zikr” series for $20,000 to a Middle Eastern collector living in Europe.
• Ayyam Gallery sold “Dream 40” by Safwan Dahoul for $300,000 to an “important public institution.”
• Galerie Chantal Crousel of Paris said a Gulf collector bought “Intermission” by Jennifer Allora and Guillermo Calzadilla, who will represent the U.S. at the Venice Biennale of Contemporary Art that opens in June.
• Artspace Gallery of Dubai reported sales including Nadine Hammam’s “Got Love” (2010) that shows the silhouette of a female nude. It sold for $16,000 to a Dubai collector. The gallery also sold Zakaria Ramhani’s, “Bye Bye Hosni,” (2011) for $26,000. Its theme is Hosni Mubarak’s recent removal as president of Egypt.

Billionaires Splurge on Middle-East Art as Dubai Fair Rebounds From Slump (Bloomberg)

Georgina Adam has a report on some of the action at Art Dubai:

• Carbon 12: Almost sold out of André Butzer’s faux-naif, expressionist paintings; one Indian-born entrepreneur, who divides his time between Biarritz in France and Oman, bought a tapestry work by the Iranian artist Sara Rahbar […] for $40,000.
• Lawrie Shabibi gallery: sold eight major pieces from Nabil Nahas (prices from $35,000-$185,000).
• Chemould Prescott Road: scored well with works by Pakistani artist Rashid Rana (prices from $70,000-$110,000).

The Art Market: World Class (Financial Times)