🔥 Qatar Is the New Math + Cristina Banban

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HEY Y’ALL!

Thanks for all the great feedback on the Yoshitomo Nara piece I shared last day!

🔥 ICYMI – Catchs from the Last Weeks:

1. Ad Minoliti, Teteritas, 2021 - priced at £21,500

2. Roby Dwi Antono, Hanan, 2016 - priced at £1,050

3. Mark Tobey, Untitled (Black,White and Red), 1965 - priced at £13,000

Today we have a BanBan that predates the Perrotin hype: fleshy, raw, and already tight on comps. Plus, Qatar’s art market is about to write its own price index.

-Today’s Catch-

Cristina Banban

💭 My 2 Cents: You’ll hear it’s “just a drawing”, but Mariana isn’t some casual sketch. It’s a fully worked pastel from 2020, right before BanBan’s breakout Del Llanto series. Same fleshy limbs, same intimate tension, just on paper. And paper from this period hits different, it’s looser, rawer, closer to the gut. It’s also pre-Perrotin, pre-Skarstedt, pre-everything. The price isn’t cheap, but this isn’t filler material. It’s an early marker from when she was still shaping the language.

🔑 Key Numbers: Made in 2020. 44 x 30 cm. Signed front and back. Sold originally through 1969 Gallery in New York, her launchpad into the U.S. market. Other works on paper of similar size have cleared £18k–£22k at Phillips and Sotheby’s over the past two years. £24k sits near the top end, but this isn’t a secondary-tier pastel, this is solo-figure, tight-frame, full-presence BanBan.

🧠 Why It’s a Smart Pick: If you want a seat at the BanBan table without dropping six figures on canvas, this is the entry point that still carries weight. It's not a leftover or a late-market print, it’s a real, pre-inflation piece that holds narrative and price memory.

Turn Art into an Asset Class

Each week, I open five private strategy calls for collectors who want their next acquisition to work harder — capital appreciation, liquidity, hard data, zero guesswork.

✅ 30-minute 1-on-1 portfolio audit: we map your budget, risk, and exit horizon, then pinpoint specific artworks currently on the market.

✅ Two months of Artscapy Club membership — free. Early-access deals, price indices, peer portfolio insights. Regular price: $120. You pay $0.

Here’s what a collector messaged me after our call last week:

Five spots only. Once they fill, next availability is June.

-In a Minute-

🔥 Words I Like: front-run, dry powder, over-index

Qatar Is the New Math

Here’s your new clock: 9 months until Art Basel Qatar. That’s your alpha window. After that, you're just another tourist in linen pants trying to pay retail.

Everyone’s still looking at Hong Kong like it's 2019. Smart money is already booking flights to Doha, locking down M7 walk-throughs, and whispering offers to regional galleries before the exhibitor list drops.

This isn’t about Qatar the state, it’s about Qatar the price-maker. They’ve spent two decades building cultural infrastructure with no matching collector base. That means supply is staged, but demand hasn't been priced in.

And the artists? Still cheap. Sub-60k for museum-validated names like Shaikha Al Mazrou or Dana Awartani. These are not scrappy unknowns, they're Venice Biennale and Louvre Abu Dhabi-tier.

You want undervalued with runway? Try Muhannad Shono. Zero auction record. Works acquired by major museums. He’s still drawing for 30k.

India’s miniaturists and Morocco’s conceptualists are next. You’ll find more pricing inefficiency in Anindita Bhattacharya’s €7,000 gouaches than in a decade of Phillips day sales.

If you’re lazy, you’ll wait for the Basel fair and overpay. If you’re smart, you’ll front-run the Basel hype and pre-buy the booth.

This is how wealth gets positioned: stealth, early, with leverage. Set up art-backed credit lines before the froth hits. Commit only 30% in Feb. Let the region catch up and mark you up.

No one cares what you think of Doha. But they will care if you own what their museums are about to chase.

-Whenever You Are Ready-

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See you soon!

-Alvaro (@theartmarketguy)

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Disclaimer

Not financial advice. Frame&Flame is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions.