Sotheby’s hosted Abu Dhabi Collectors’ Week from 2 to 5 December at the five-star St Regis Island Resort overlooking the Persian Gulf. It climaxed in a series of auctions selling luxury handbags, watches, jewellery and sports cars on Friday that took a combined $133 million. The event, which included a non-selling art exhibition worth around $500 million, was the result of a deal the auction house’s billionaire owner, telecommunications and media mogul Patrick Drahi, signed with Abu Dhabi’s sovereign wealth fund ADQ last year. The Emiratis acquired a minority stake in Sotheby’s by injecting $1 billion into the business, which will support its growth in the Middle East and strengthen its ailing balance sheet.
Lebanese-French entrepreneur and art patron Elie Khouri, who is the founder of Vivium – a single-family office in Dubai – told Spear’s that after striking the deal it was important for the Emiratis to flex their muscles during Abu Dhabi Collectors’ Week.
‘Abu Dhabi wanted to show Sotheby’s it can make things happen, and as you see from the $133 million total it succeeded,’ he said. ‘The emirate has been buying major artworks for its museums, and I’m sure the deal with Sotheby’s will help to facilitate these transactions. It therefore made sense for the auction house to showcase the art last week. It ties in with Abu Dhabi developing its culture, especially as Frieze is bringing a new art fair here next year. It will boost tourism. There’s a lot of wealth moving to Abu Dhabi, with many HNWIs, hedge funds and family offices setting up shop here.’
The deal enables Sotheby’s to get boots on the ground and tap into the region’s booming luxury market. For its part, Abu Dhabi benefits from the auction house’s cultural capital as it ploughs ahead with plans to morph into a major museum destination. The city’s Saadiyat Island now boasts the Louvre Abu Dhabi, the Zayed National Museum and the National History Museum. Add the soon-to-open Guggenheim Abu Dhabi into the mix and you have a cluster of four colossal cultural institutions, each backed by a massive state budget.
Related
The art exhibition, titled ‘Icons’, included works by Andy Warhol, Gustav Klimt, Gerhard Richter and Banksy, all loaned from private collections. In an unusual move, Sotheby’s touted each work’s price at auction. The auction house was also flexing; Warhol’s Nine Marilyns sold for $47.3 million at Sotheby’s in 2021, the label proudly stated.
‘If you look at trading art in the region, Dubai is where 80 per cent of it happens, and Abu Dhabi is trying to change this,’ Khouri, who is one of the main ‘sharks’ on Shark Tank Dubai, said. ‘Within three years I think we’ll see a lot more galleries moving here because the market is shifting. There is an increasing number of buyers in Abu Dhabi, but for now the majority are in Dubai.’
Abu Dhabi’s art market might be developing, but given the limited number of established collectors, Sotheby’s is expected to prioritise the royal family and museums, though it does not say so openly. The region’s appetite for handbags, watches and diamonds in the Middle East is insatiable. Last year the luxury market in the Middle East surged by 6 per cent, hitting almost $13 billion, according to a report by Dubai-based retailer and distributor Chalhoub Group. Sotheby’s tapped into it last week, selling a Hermès handbag owned by fashion icon Jane Birkin for $2.9 million, a 31.68-karat ‘organgy pink’ diamond for $8.8 million and a 1994 McLaren F1 car for $25.3 million.
‘Culturally, this part of the world has been more attached to the materialistic side of culture,’ Khouri added. His 450-piece art collection includes works by established and emerging voices in contemporary art, including George Condo, Rashid Johnson, Olafur Eliasson, Nicolas Party, Emma Webster, Joan Semmel and Louise Bonnet. ‘People relate to buying expensive things like cars, jewellery, watches here, as opposed to blue-chip art. Traditionally, people have shown their wealth through material acquisitions, not cultural. But this is shifting, and I’m sure Sotheby’s will play a big hand.’
Content from our partners
