Tehran's Basquiat, Martin Parr in Dubai

Haerizadeh's 'Under the Sour Cherry Tree'. On display in Dubai's B21 Gallery until April 10.

Dubai's gallery scene already looks the part, located as it is in an area nearly resembling a hybrid of SOMA in San Francisco and LA's Fairfax (just off Sheikh Zayed Road in the Al Quoz area, to be less than exact). I spent the afternoon largely at B21 and The Third Line - probably the city's two most influential galleries - and was struck by Rokni Haerizadeh's 'The Donkey, the Pagan, the Bride, and Others' at B21. The Tehran-born Haerizadeh's points of reference would appear to be Basquiat and Motley (and, technically though not thematically, we can safely add a dash of Matisse in there too). Needless to say, he moves genre easily. His concerns also coincide with those of Basquiat and Motley: While playing with Persian mythologic tropes and drawing freely from Rumi, Haerizadeh gravitates toward urban settings (yes, he makes Pahlavi Street look like Harlem or U Street) and seems drawn to (although not fixated on) deviance and its uneasy existence in Tehran. 'Tuesday Afternoon on Pahlavi Street' goes so far as to actually depict a group of gays bickering with a conservative.

Parr shoots the Harpers Party at Grosvenor House. On display at Third Line until April 14.

Whereas Haerizadeh approaches the proverbial difference-homogeneity dialectic with seriousness and restraint (never diluting sensual pleasure, I will add), Martin Parr, who is currently featured at The Third Line, takes a somewhat different tack. Parr's work at Third Line is from a series he shot at The Dubai World Cup Horse Race and the DIFC Art Fair last year. Parr does not bother to hide his disdain for his subjects, as his self-penned introduction (titled 'Bling Bling' no less) to the catalogue drives home. The little essay carries a disturbing 'Tom Wolfe does Dubai' sensibility, and is, I will not hesitate to add, replete with an unfortunate misuse of 'compliment' in the first paragraph.

Parr's strategy seems to consist of finding vaguely unattractive members of the nouveau riche and honing in on signs of bad taste (Eurotrash brands in particular) and, even better, plastic surgery. The trouble is that when one goes to the race track or a flashy art gala in search of these 'motifs,' the targets are just too easy. And then, as an artist, you come across as a little bit lazy and a little bit mean. Besides, most of Parr's audience already knows and has seen enough bad taste. And Lord knows we have all seen enough plastic surgery to know it when we see it and, frankly, to remain unmoved at this point.