Resumen
The expansion of the British auction houses Christie?s, Sotheby?s and Bonhams to markets in the Middle East has played a crucial role in building an international market for art from the region. They have also been essential in providing an international platform for the sale of art from Iran, a country whose economy is otherwise isolated from global markets. In this paper, I address the growth of the market for Iranian art specifically via Christie?s auctions in Dubai. Through close analysis of auction catalogs, ethnographic data drawn from live auctions and interviews with key staff members, I document the emergence of Iranian art into the international arena and the solidification of both Iranian and Middle Eastern art as a distinct category of sales. In particular, I explore the notion of ?seeing with the other eye?, a way that auction specialists nudge local collectors into the arena of ?international? taste. Through analysis of the particular tropes used to narrate artist biographies in auction catalogs, I demonstrate how artists are painted as interpreters and translators of ?local? and ?global? aesthetic registers.