Aileen Agopian says Damien Hirst’s ‘Tranquility’ (in the background) is among the highlights of the event. PICTURES: Joey Aguilar

By Joey Aguilar/Staff Reporter

Sotheby’s will be holding an evening auction of Contemporary Art at the Katara Art Centre, Building 5, today featuring 53 works by Middle Eastern and international artists.

Iranian artist Ali Banisadr’s “The Chase” (estimated $180,000-250,000) and Damien Hirst’s “Tranquility” (est $1,000,000-1,500,000) from the latter’s Kaleidoscope series of butterfly paintings will be the highlights of the auction, which will start at 7pm.

“Banisadr is an artist we feel confident we’ll be achieving a new world record,” Aileen Agopian, Sotheby’s senior vice-president, international senior specialist, contemporary art, told reporters during the media launch yesterday.

Describing the artist’s exhibition in New York as phenomenal with sold-out shows in galleries, she said Banisadr has a strong following from Asia to Latin America, crossing different countries and “creating so much excitement globally”.

On the other hand, Agopian said Hirst’s works of art are some of the most exciting highlights, recounting his “monumental exhibition in Doha last year”.

Sotheby’s felt it was important to choose Hirst’s work due to the impact his show had created last year.

Citing the nine auction records in Doha it achieved last year, Sotheby’s hopes to repeat the feat and even set new world records this evening. However, Agopian admitted it was difficult to top any auction.

Last year’s $15,199,750,00 achievement, considered as the highest price for an auction of Contemporary Art in the Arab region, included a record for a living Arab artist (Chant Avedissian).

“The moment the last piece was sold last year, we were already thinking strategically of the artist who will put us on the road to create the same excitement and momentum, the same bidding energy from across the world,” she explained.

Bidders from 21 countries had participated last year, including Americans, who were bidding aggressively on works from the Middle East, according to the Sotheby’s senior official.

“We had people from Turkey, Kuwait and Saudi (Arabia) bidding on our most sought-after contemporary international, Western artists,” she recounted.

Prior to the auction in Doha, an exhibition from the sale travelled to Saudi Arabia as part of the Jeddah Art Week and in Dubai to coincide with Art Dubai. Exhibitions in Sotheby’s London and New York galleries were also held before the pre-sale public exhibition at Katara in partnership with Bank of America Merrill Lynch, which opened on October 7.

Lina Lazaar Jameel, Sotheby’s international contemporary art specialist, echoed the statements of Agopian, saying great art such as that of Banisadr does not land itself into a single interpretation.

“You could have someone from Qatar, from England, China and the US and think very different things, none of them contradicting each other. That is what Ali’s work is all about,” she stressed. “It is a very personal narrative about his Iranian heritage but which is translated into a very technically complex and in a technically incredible way.”

About Hirst’s “Tranquility”, Jameel described it as one of the artist’s better butterfly paintings. “It has this serene feel to it and it is very much aligned to its title.”

It was also the first Hirst artwork to be shown in Saudi Arabia and believed to be the most photographed work in Jeddah.