Seven months, 1,065 paintbrushes, 6,300 litres of paint and $62 million – Sacha Jafri has pulled off one of the art world's greatest feats with the sale of his record-breaking canvas The Journey of Humanity.
From April until September, the British contemporary artist used the ballroom of Dubai’s Atlantis, The Palm, to make the world’s largest art canvas – officially certified by Guinness World Records – measuring 1,800 square metres and spanning more than two football fields placed end to end.
The finished piece, which has been on display at the hotel over the past few weeks, was cut into 70 pieces and was set to be sold across four auctions this year with the hopes of raising $30m for charity. However, the piece was sold in its entirety to Andre Abdoune, chief executive of Altius Gestion International Holding, during an auction in Dubai on Monday for a staggering $62m.
Video footage from the auction, held in the room where the artwork was created, shows the moment the hammer came down on the most expensive artwork ever sold in the UAE.
“This gentleman here is helping to make dreams come true, this gentleman here is helping to make history, this gentleman here is going to be the talk of the town,” the auctioneer says.
An emotional Jafri can be seen jumping on to his table and holding his head in disbelief, before going to embrace Abdoune.
"It was my dream in my life to do something amazing for my children, for my father," Abdoune said in a statement following the sale. "I talked with Sacha and I discovered the investment and love he put into this painting was so amazing.
"All my life I was aiming to help children. When I was a child, I had nothing to eat. Now I have something to eat. We all have to do something. Every dollar can mean something. If we do it together, we give hope to these children and their future. The UAE shows us the way, we have to follow it. The impossible is possible. I want to say that this is just the first step for 'Humanity Inspired'."
The funds will be split between Dubai Cares, Unicef, Unesco and Global Gift Foundation. Partners from the public sector in the UAE including the Ministry of Tolerance and Coexistence and Ministry of Education also joined the initiative.
One of the programmes to benefit will be Unicef’s Giga project, an initiative launched last year alongside the International Telecommunication Union with the aim of connecting every school in the world to the internet. The initiative will also support Unesco in its efforts towards facilitating the production and endorsement of a Global Declaration on Connectivity for Learning and Livelihood, which aims to make connected learning more inclusive and more equitable, and will be launched by Dubai Cares and its partners during Expo 2020 Dubai.
Jafri, who lives in Dubai, spent 20 hours a day creating the work. To help fill the canvas, the artist invited children from around the world to send in their drawings themed around isolation and connection, which were then used for the first layer of the painting.
The final version contains more than 300 layers of paint. The finished work was unveiled on February 25 by Sheikh Nahyan bin Mubarak,Minister of Tolerance and Coexistence, and Dr Tariq Al Gurg, chief executive of Dubai Cares.
Jafri is no stranger to using his work to raise funds for charity, having raised more than $60m already over the course of his 20-year career. He has acted as a long-time ambassador for the Global Gift Foundation, which is run by Maria Bravo and Eva Longoria. His work has previously been auctioned to benefit the Start Foundation in Dubai, La Pegasus Polo Centre in northern India and the mental health initiative Heads Together, run by the UK's Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, among other causes. His collectors are starrier than most artists could ever dream of.
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The two finalists advance to the Asia qualifier in Malaysia in August
Group A
Bahrain, Maldives, Oman, Qatar
Group B
UAE, Iran, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia
UAE group fixtures
Sunday Feb 23, 9.30am, v Iran
Monday Feb 25, 1pm, v Kuwait
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UAE squad
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Founders: Sebastian Stefan, Sebastian Morar and Claudia Pacurar
Based: Dubai, UAE
Founded: 2014
Number of employees: 36
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Rating: 2/5
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The smuggler
Eldarir had arrived at JFK in January 2020 with three suitcases, containing goods he valued at $300, when he was directed to a search area.
Officers found 41 gold artefacts among the bags, including amulets from a funerary set which prepared the deceased for the afterlife.
Also found was a cartouche of a Ptolemaic king on a relief that was originally part of a royal building or temple.
The largest single group of items found in Eldarir’s cases were 400 shabtis, or figurines.
Khouli conviction
Khouli smuggled items into the US by making false declarations to customs about the country of origin and value of the items.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he provided “false provenances which stated that [two] Egyptian antiquities were part of a collection assembled by Khouli's father in Israel in the 1960s” when in fact “Khouli acquired the Egyptian antiquities from other dealers”.
He was sentenced to one year of probation, six months of home confinement and 200 hours of community service in 2012 after admitting buying and smuggling Egyptian antiquities, including coffins, funerary boats and limestone figures.
For sale
A number of other items said to come from the collection of Ezeldeen Taha Eldarir are currently or recently for sale.
Their provenance is described in near identical terms as the British Museum shabti: bought from Salahaddin Sirmali, "authenticated and appraised" by Hossen Rashed, then imported to the US in 1948.
- An Egyptian Mummy mask dating from 700BC-30BC, is on offer for £11,807 ($15,275) online by a seller in Mexico
- A coffin lid dating back to 664BC-332BC was offered for sale by a Colorado-based art dealer, with a starting price of $65,000
- A shabti that was on sale through a Chicago-based coin dealer, dating from 1567BC-1085BC, is up for $1,950
Biog
Mr Kandhari is legally authorised to conduct marriages in the gurdwara
He has officiated weddings of Sikhs and people of different faiths from Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Russia, the US and Canada
Father of two sons, grandfather of six
Plays golf once a week
Enjoys trying new holiday destinations with his wife and family
Walks for an hour every morning
Completed a Bachelor of Commerce degree in Loyola College, Chennai, India
2019 is a milestone because he completes 50 years in business
The years Ramadan fell in May
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Zayed Sustainability Prize
ELIO
Starring: Yonas Kibreab, Zoe Saldana, Brad Garrett
Directors: Madeline Sharafian, Domee Shi, Adrian Molina
Rating: 4/5
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
