The 2026 Art Basel and UBS Report—prepared by Arts Economics—analyzes the global art market in 2025 across both the auction and dealer sectors, and offers projections for market trends in 2026. According to the report, the global art market returned to profitability following two consecutive years of contraction, recording a 4% increase in overall growth. Meanwhile, the online segme...

This article provides a brief overview of the Iranian art market’s performance since 2020, a sensitive period marked by successive social, political, and economic crises that have shaped the domestic art scene. The focus is on the statistics and results of Tehran Auction, the only publicly available official source, showing that the market’s lowest performance coincided with the cou...

Trench art refers to objects and handmade artifacts created during wartime, often using leftover materials such as bullets, shell casings, mud, wood, or even fruit pits. These works blur the boundaries between survival, memory, and artistic expression. Mary Walling Blackburn’s Wound, Whittle, and Peach examines these marginal forms through historical and theoretical perspectives, hi...

This text is a Persian translation of the article “On Art Activism” by Boris Groys, published in issue 56 of the journal e-flux in 2014. Groys examines art activism through the concept of aesthetization, critically rethinking the relationship between art, politics, and design. Situating his analysis within philosophical and historical debates that extend beyond modernity and narrati...

This text examines the suitcase as both a material object and a symbolic figure within the experience of migration, exile, and displacement—an object that, from the nineteenth century onward, gradually became a defining sign of forced travel and acquired a stable presence in artistic and museological narratives in the twentieth century. Focusing on the historical trajectories of Mar...

The present article focuses on ten high-value Iranian artworks sold at auction in 2025. These works represent eight prominent artists spanning Iran’s classical, modern, and contemporary periods, including Reza Abbasi, Mohammad Qasim, Mo'en Mosavver, Bahman Mohasses, Ali Banisadr, Hossein Zenderoudi, and Manoucher Yektai. All of the works were executed on paper or canvas and were sol...

Artchart Half-Year Auction Market Report on Iranian Art - H1 1404 SH (Mar–Sep 2025) provides a detailed overview of the key trends and developments observed in this six-month period of the Iranian calendar year. The report examines the presence and performance of Iranian artworks in auctions held worldwide during this timeframe, including the activities of major auction houses, the...

In the mid-eighteenth century, Charles Batteux, in his treatise Les Beaux-Arts réduits à un même principe," drew for the first time a precise and hierarchical boundary between the arts created “solely for pleasure” and those that pursue “utility” alongside—or instead of—pleasure. This seemingly theoretical distinction in fact laid the foundation for one of the most enduring debates...

Art-backed loans provide collectors with a distinctive opportunity to obtain liquidity without divesting their valuable assets. Although this approach entails challenges, including complex valuation procedures and relatively high interest rates, its potential benefits render it an appealing option for investors and collectors seeking to optimize the utility of their luxury holdings.