I do own a few of Medhi's pieces, but here are my unbiased observations:
- the overall auction didn't seem to attract many bidders (eyeballing the results, many sold within estimate, looks like a lot didn't sell)
- the Mehdi piece seemed to garner the most bids (yes, the estimate was glaringly low, but I was not aware of it here in the US ... strange timing with Thanksgiving day weekend)
- it's a good thing for Mehdi collectors (IMO) that this didn't blow the top off his price (if he attained a huge price, the market would then be flooded with his work which might not reflect actual demand) and then gallery won't be able to sell anything new if they don't hold their price
- nice exposure for Mehdi in a marquee auction house
- like the Facebook IPO (which moved less than 5% on IPO day) the gallery seems to be pricing this perfectly. After all, the bulk of the funds should be going to the artist and his team and not to "flippers"

I know mehdi and richard are both very pleased with the price achieved, its the first time a canvas has been sold via an auction house and it sets where his market is going, no doubt prices will rise for both prints and canvases in the near future, mehdi ghadyanloo is an outstanding artist and richard a very clever business man, together they make a formidable team. Mehdi is currently concentating on work for WEF so 2020 will no doubt raise his profile on the world stage even higher.

The painting was made in 2018, and auctioned in 2018.

Hmmm.....

Interesting...a gallery or close associate would never bid in an auction right? ;-) Auction markets can and will be manipulated by interested parties, especially emerging artists. Not saying this is the case here, but taking with a grain of salt.

Hello
I’m looking to sell the recent enigma print from his water series. I only just got it a month or two ago, but I don’t have the money to frame at the moment and it’s so large that I can’t properly store, so I thought I’d offer it to one of you. At cost. So, 1380 USD. It’s 38 by 38 inches. I’m in New York so if anyone wants to pick it up I’d be forever grateful.

I can add pictures later when I’m not on my phone.

Also for what it’s worth, I had a huge dent in the back of the paper right at the top of the door. Thankfully, you can’t see it at all in front. Did anyone else have this?

MEHDI GHADYANLOO FINDING HOPE
World Economic Forum Davos Annual Conference 22 Jan 2019 – 25 Jan 2019
Davos-Klosters, Switzerland, 23 January 2019 - The World Economic Forum unveils Finding Hope, its latest commission in Davos by the celebrated Iranian artist Mehdi Ghadyanloo (born 1981). This monumental work of art, created in Iran, spans a total
of 186 square metres and consists of three paintings on canvas affixed to the walls of the main atrium of the WEF’s Conference Centre. Finding Hope is Ghadyanloo’s largest indoor commission to date, and is a response to the 2019 Davos Annual Meeting’s theme: Globalization 4.0: Shaping a Global Architecture in the Age of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. It follows a series of large-scale public artworks in the United States with which Ghadyanloo became the first artist to be publicly commissioned by both the US and Iranian Governments since Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution.
In Finding Hope, Ghadyanloo employs his mastery of perspective not to simply adorn the walls of the Davos Conference Centre, but to create new spaces that interact with the clean minimalism of the interior atrium. The eerily flawless architecture in these paintings, which merges through “trompe-l'oeil’ with the building itself, is complicated only by three bold, symbolic figures, each of which invites viewers to reflect on the current state of the world around them. As world leaders and CEOs walk beneath Ghadyanloo’s surreal panorama, the disturbing tranquillity of these imagined spaces
is intended to heighten their awareness of the global issues and anxieties they have come to discuss, issues whose gravity is well illustrated by the telling absence of Donald Trump, Theresa May and Emmanuel Macron as they grapple with issues at home.
A far cry from this seat of power, Ghadyanloo was born on a farm in rural Iran during
the Iran-Iraq war. Growing up under sanctions and with his father fighting on the front lines, his experiences have left a lasting impact on his psyche and still inform his present work. In his early career, Ghadyanloo sought to ease the suffering of Tehran’s inhabitants—if only for a few seconds at a time—by painting hundreds of murals and turning the city’s skyline into a dreamlike utopia. Since exchanging buildings for canvases, however, his works have become more concerned with actively revealing truth to those who see them, rather than being passive objects of enjoyment.
Here, for instance, he imposes these images in order to provoke reflection and reaction. In the central painting, a little girl facing away from us represents one child and all children, and the balloon she holds recalls a familiar sense of innocence and precarity. In her anonymity and naivety, she collapses the difference between the privileged minority and everyone else, reminding us that our responsibilities to the next generation, be they economic, environmental or otherwise, are universal. As with the central object of each of these three paintings, she is also notably surrounded by walls—a potent symbol of contemporary geopolitics. Whether these walls are trapping her, protecting her, or both, she is in a state of deprivation: These constructs, like all such barriers, limit vision, freedom and shared humanity.
The two adjacent pictures in the triptych recall the consequences of failing to realise our responsibilities to each other. The tethered balloon on one side must either rise or fall, and, evoking all-too-familiar economic cycles and uncertainties, eventually burst. Facing the balloon from across the hall and bound to it by a “common thread”, a glinting needle hangs like a damoclean sword. It is a fitting metaphor for growing threats to
the current order at a time in which Klaus Schwab, founder of the World Economic Forum, recognises that “populism has become increasingly attractive as an alternative to the status quo”. However, it is crucial to notice that the needle is also threaded, and therefore as apt for creation and repair as for destruction, itself evocative of the global role of the Davos milieu at its best.
Mehdi Ghadyanloo is inviting us to texture the surreal minimalism of his unfeasibly smooth surfaces, finely graded blue skies, and unidentifiable figures with our own thoughts, reflections and anxieties for the future. In the three connected figures of girl, balloon and needle, he offers the Davos Annual Meeting spaces to reflect, objects of meditation on which to focus, and symbolic tools for finding hope.

Well, thats one great CV right there. Well done! One of the most promising artists within reach my opinion

I like his paintings but WOW slightly over-intellectualized innit? I dislike when people do that, it takes away an individuals personal interaction with what they are looking at and how it resonates with them. If a picture speaks a thousand words there should be no need for a thousand word essay to explain it.

This should help raise the profile as well

http://instagram.com/p/Bs-2ikyByTc

I don’t think that’s mehdi’s thing? He’s an artist and activist and seems to be invited to many important economic meetings to discuss his country, politics and art

No one trick pony this guy.

Davos has a cultural program and Mehdi is a cultural ambassador. One of the causes Davos is devoted to is how art may change our society and the importance of it. Mehdi has created a work for the main entrance and I think he nailed it. Been a lot of fun working with Mehdi on this.

My impression of his work there is that it's a direct challenge to the attendees.

Spoke to the gallery, thry are releasing a print based on this