Iran

We're a step closer to finding out who will win the biannual Hugo Boss Prize, which is bestowed for achievement in contemporary art. Vying for the $100,000 award this year are the finalists just announced by the Guggenheim: Cao Fei from China, Hans-Peter Feldmann from Germany, Natascha Sadr Haghighian from Iran, Roman Ondak from the nation formerly known as Czechoslovakia, Walid Raad from Lebanon and Apichatpong Weerasethakul from Thailand.

In addition to the cash – and possibly more valuable in the long run – the Hugo Boss Prize winner will also get a 2011 exhibition at the Guggenheim in New York. The winners are selected by a panel of art professionals that includes Ysmil Raymond, curator of the Dia Art Foundation; Udo Kittelmann, director of Berlin's Nationalgalerie and Tirad Zolghadr, an independent writer and curator.

Last year, the honor went to Emily Jacir. Previous winners include Matthew Barney, Douglas Gordon, Pierre Huyghe, Rirkrit Tiravanija and Tacita Dean.

Unlike most art prizes, this one stipulates has no age, geographic or medium-specific qualifications. It is as open as open can be.

Occasionally whiz-kid designers beat the pros at their own game when it comes to concept cars. At the very least they open up a world of possibilities that the car companies themselves may be too timid to explore. (See our earlier reports on the Audi Shark and the Chanel-mobile, for example). The latest entry comes to us from Iran, where despite all the unrest creativity still flourishes. The razor sharp new Lamborghini concept by Iranian designer Emil Baddal is an angular evolution of the Gallardo. It's bound to please some purists and offend others with sharper angles and lines and an edgier ethos all around, as these things go, but we think the Lambo by Baddal is badass.

In 2008, it looks the ongoing battles for caviar will be heating up. The fight for the Caspian Sea is starting to get more contentious. In the past, we've mentioned the concerns over the sea and the sturgeon in the sea which are the world's biggest source of caviar. On Monday, Iran firmed up their demand for a share of around 20 percent of the Caspian Sea. There are five Caspian sea states, Iran, Russia, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan. In October, at a summit in Tehran, the five states pledged to work out an agreement to divide the sea but have not agreed on the boundaries yet. Iran's coast is less than 14% of the sea but they think the sea's resources should be divided into five equal portions. The sea is also a source of oil reserves. In terms of caviar the question isn't just access to the sturgeon but also how much caviar, if any, should be harvested. The sturgeon, which can live to over 100 years but mature slowly, are being fished out of existence.

Meanwhile, the black market in caviar continues apace, especially in Russia where the growing ranks of big spenders have an increasing demand for the delicacy. This occurs just as depleted sturgeon stocks have led to bans on caviar. In Russia recently a large crime ring that dealt in illegal caviar was busted. An article in the Independent asserts that most of the caviar sold in Moscow is illegal. The article also states that even the poachers on the Caspian Sea are having trouble making a living.

It is certain that the world of caviar will have to change simply because the Caspian Sea is being fished out. This also represents an opportunity for growing caviar industries in other parts of the world. We've seen a variety of different caviar options arise over the past few years (Check a list of some beluga alternatives i wrote about in 2006) ranging from sturgeon farms in California to paddlefish, trout or salmon roe and even caviar made from seaweed.

The list of "things Iran has that the U.S. doesn't" is a pretty short one, but one item to be found on it would be this: the world's largest handmade carpet. At 60,546 sq ft the carpet is larger than a soccer field and took 18 months and 1,200 weavers to make. Red and green in color, it was created and assembled from 9 individual sections and has over 2.2 billion knots.

So where does a rug of this size find a home? Well this one, worth an estimated $5.8 million, is destined for a mosque in the United Arab Emirates.


Via Born Rich

Good news for caviar lovers. The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) has given Iran approval to export caviar from wild sturgeon again. Other Caspian Sea nations are still out of luck. CITES approved exports of up 44,370 kilograms (around 97,000 pounds) of caviar from Iran provided that the eggs cover from Persian caviar, the only species which is not in dire straits. Beluga sturgeon is still banned. Other Caspian Sea nations including Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Russia and Turkmenistan failed to produce sustainable quota proposals before a meeting deadline and so they will likely remain under a ban for the rest of the year.