Abu Dhabi Art 2014: A restored masterpiece

Abu Dhabi Art is a very special place,” says Dr Shiva Balaghi, an art historian at Brown University and a curatorial consultant for Leila Heller Gallery. “You can count on a local audience that is culturally literate and with whom one can have a genuinely elevated conversation. It is a very sophisticated audience.”

Balaghi is in Abu Dhabi for the first time as a curator for the New York gallery, but Heller, who was one of the first gallerists to specialise in Middle Eastern art in the United States, has been exhibiting at the fair since its inception six years ago.

The fact that she continues to return is testament to the fair, but the evolution of the event itself has not been all smooth sailing. Last year’s sudden thunderstorm, which left the 22 gallery booths in the UAE Pavilion having to rapidly relocate into the main Manarat building, was a chaotic time and, some say, it might be the reason that Larry Gagosian, arguably the world’s most powerful gallerist, has not returned. Nevertheless, Gagosian or not, the general consensus from the 50 galleries that are collectively showing 600 works by 400 artists in booths set up in Manarat Al Saadiyat this year is that it has reached maturity.

Tuesday’s opening vernissage evening saw a healthy amount of interest from regional and local collectors. In Heller’s booth, which Balaghi expertly curated to include formal experimentation pieces from a collection of artists, two works by Steven Naifeh sold for US$20,000 (Dh73,462) and $30,000 to buyers in Abu Dhabi and Doha.

Original article by Anna Seaman

Continue reading at The National:

Abu Dhabi Art 2014: a restored masterpiece