Wahed Khakdan

For me, as someone who has been working in the field of painting for several years, the recent ten years activities were totally a miracle that happened due to the flourishing of Dubai auctions. Although those auctions can only be considered as economic events without any cultural or artistic mission, but at the same time, they became the main reason for a quick movement in any field in visual art community. From the very beginning, while everyone was eagerly awaiting the astonishing developments in art economy, many expected that such excitement of unexpected attentions and encouragements become a solution to untie the knots caused by the unfamiliar positionings in fields of visual art in the past.
In my opinion, these expectations became both disappointing over time, as our market became more and more popular and the art products turned to a decorative, contentless and handicrafts, both in the market and the galleries.
How and by what means can such malformed child be returned to a path with acceptable rules and standards? Is it too difficult and complicated? Or shall we be optimistic and consider everything that is done as something great, as the product that we can finally donate to the world’s art history?