Art Dubai and the new vision of Dubai 18 months after the crash
Posted on 21 March 2010 with no comments from readers
Art Dubai 2010 presented a new vision of contemporary Dubai 18 months after the credit crunch that brought the real estate boom to a sudden stop.
Anybody who thought this city might be destitute ought to have looked around Art Dubai last weekend. Most of the city’s leaders certainly did so.
18 months post-crash
For 18 months since the $20 million party to open the Atlantis Hotel on The Palm Jumeirah symbolized the height of excess, Dubai is a more sober city. But there is still an awful lot of creative and entrepreneurial spirit in Dubai, and that magic ingredient to commerce, money.
Many investors may have lost their shirts in the real estate boom. Yet the splendid modern infrastructure of the city remains. Art Dubai was held in the Madinat Jumeirah, a sprawling complex of beautiful Arabian themed hotels and a souk, opposite the iconic Burj Al Arab hotel.
It was not clear how much art was being sold, although ArabianMoney saw one elderly national buying three ladies in black several AED500,000 hand-painted watches. The artist who painted these time-pieces was giving a display of painting under the microscope.
Yet the surrounding hotels obviously benefited from this modern art fair. The sponsors HSBC and Abraaj Capital benefited from the prestige of association. And Dubai has an event that will probably gradually morph into something like the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition. It is another leap forward for a city that had no defining annual art show until four years ago.
Boom and bust
Of course, it will be some years before anything like the recent Dubai real estate boom can happen again. These booms do tend to be once-in-a-generation transformations that are followed by long consolidation periods.
But if anybody doubts that a global hub city like Dubai is going to bounce back then they should have taken a look at Art Dubai 2010.
Modern art is also presently in recession with auction prices on the floor. So it makes sense for the galleries to come to their potential buyers rather than expect them to journey to overseas.
Increasingly, multinationals and banks are also going to relocate to Dubai for the same reason, and to avoid taxes and take advantage of much lower real estate costs. That is the new vision for Dubai.
