Last night was the preview for Contemporary Art Platform and JAMM-Art's third annual auction, in which they displayed over 60 works by emerging and established Arab, Iranian and International Art. The majority of pieces on display are estimated under $10,000 to provide an opportunity for young collectors in our region to take part of this auction and build their own contemporary art collection.
Of course, to me fashion comes first, so naturally the first items I was drawn to were these limited edition books by Taschen titled Fashion Designers A-Z. The book defines designers of the 20th and 21st centuries and their most remarkable works. Mind you not any fashion designer is featured in this volume, the chosen designers have their work displayed permanently as part of the collection of the Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology. The jumbo book is available as a series of six Designer Editions. Each edition (a total of 11,000 copies) is bound in a fabric created by one of six designers: Akris, Etro, Stella McCartney, Missoni, Prada, and Diane von Furstenberg, and comes in a Plexiglas box.
I fell in love with Prada's banana print cover, just like my skirt (Yay!). Notice the black and white cover print in the left side of the photo above? This one is by Diane von Furstenber and the print was worn by Michelle Obama on the official White House Christmas Card in 2009. I think the volume was selling for KD 150 more of less.
Now moving back to art, I have taken photos of some of my favorite pieces, scroll down to read more about them. The evening auction continues tonight on 29th November at 6 PM at Contemporary Art Platform's premises in Shuwaikh. All proceeds will benefit JAMM's programs promoting cultural dialogue.
From left to right: Editor-in-Cheif of Marie Claire Kuwait Ms. Zainab Al Abdulrazzaq, Ms. Lulu M Al-Sabah founding Partner of JAMM, and Mrs. Lolwa Al Radhwan interior designer and my lovely fellow bloggerista.
Fifi Abdou, an Egyptian belly dancer and actress, I'm not a fan of what she does but I've seen her ininterviews and she has a funny character and a lot of charisma. this piece is a hand-colored gelatin silver print by Youssef Nabil (2000).
Acrylic on canvas by Mohammed Ramadan (2012)
This piece by Chinese artist Zhou Wendou creeped me out! It actually moves and apparently it was one of the best selling pieces in some art shows in Europe. I can see it being displayed in a boutique on a showroom, but not in a house. I'd have a heart attack if I saw this in the middle of the night while walking to the kitchen for a glass of water!
In love with these pieces by artist Simeen Farhat, I have featured her work previously here. At first I thought these were random Arabic letters because I couldn't figure out what it was saying. But then JAMM rep explained to me that the text used in Simeen Farahat's sculptures and installations are revolutionary poems, mostly from famous Persian and Urdu poets whose powerful writing themes are about freedom of thought and speech. Very interesting.
What can I say, I'm a fan of Arabic calligraphy. Piece by Salar Ahmadian (2012)
And back to fashion again, luxury watch brand TAG Heuer, had a corner where they displayed their watches since they're the exclusive sponsor for the auction. I didn't bother to ask about the price of the diamond encrusted watch shown in the photo above. BUT...... (scroll down please)
I saw this and I was like hey that looks really nice and probably somewhat affordable. Little did I know! This baby can set you back a whooooooopping KD 70,000. You read that right. No extra zeros here. That's around $246,743. So I just stared at the watch below.... in silence.
A beautiful bronze sculpture by Kuwaiti artist Ebrahim Habib
Neon piece by Leila Pazooki... can you feel the love?
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