ArtDayMe : Hossein Hashempoor : 

1:  When Michael Jeha , the inaugural chairman of Christie's Middle East, arrived in Tehran on the eve of the office's tenth anniversary in the DIFC and accepted my offer for a tough interview, it was fall of 2015, two years after I had taken up the role of editor of Iran's Art News Agency.

I used to go to Christie's Middle East auctions in Dubai twice a year for many years. Mr. Jeha and I were both aware of the myths and fallacies surrounding the local art market.

Michael arrived to reply to questions arising from misguided ethnocentrism. When that conversation was observed, much uncertainty was removed.

He made an intriguing observation in that interview regarding the order of artists in Christie's Dubai catalogs and the uncertainty around a nation's advancement or backwardness, which is the topic of my article: "The sooner we put nationality out of our minds, the easier it will be to identify the place of the artist's work. For ten years following the opening of the Dubai office, Christie's aims to exclude this ethnicity and nationality from its catalog."

After all those thrilling years, Christie's Middle East has been held in London for many years now. The auction house's DIFC office is still open, though. As the years have passed, Dubai and the United Arab Emirates have developed into a multicultural metropolis, proving that "There is no nationality in art."

2: These days, the most prominent examples of it are found on both sides of Dubai: Art Dubai and Sikka Art and Design Festival, which bring together artists from across the globe and enhance the beauty of this city and life in general.

3: As an art journalist, I get to meet a number of artists who live in Dubai, Sharjah, or Abu Dhabi every day. One was born in Brazil, another in India, still another in Lebanon, France, America, Ukraine, and so on; however, the rosary thread of art unites them all. It goes without saying that an artist's cultural background and life experiences greatly influence their creative output. The point is that these distinctions are what make them beautiful. Since no human is a duplicate of another, art is the most attractive means of presenting such a variety of ideas.

Those who observe the 500 artists' works at the 12th Sikka Art and Design Festival, which is currently taking place in the historic alleyways of Shindagha, and the 17th edition of Art Dubai, which is set in the stunning Madinat Jumeirah area, believe that via their stunning exhibition of art, Dubai and the UAE have succeeded in developing into an expanding metropolis with genuinely devoted citizens.