Not so long ago in London the words contemporary art and Middle East would rarely be mentioned in the same sentence. Yet as interest by collectors grows for work of artists in the region in the U.S., Asia and the Gulf, has the capital of the what was for many years the Colonial grandparent to many Middle Eastern nations embraced the legitimacy of MENASA art.

Not so much. Flash-forward to the British capital today, as it gets ready to kick off the Frieze Art Fair (October 11-14 in Regent’s Park) – and still, the now famous Thomas Friedman quote about globalization — “the world is flat” –has not quite infiltrated the still slightly curvaceous art world.

Even with the growing quality and sophistication of the Dubai and Abu Dhabi art fairs, regular auctions of modern and contemporary Middle Eastern art at both Sotheby’s and Christie’s in Qatar and Dubai; not to mention the benediction of the (pardon the title) Sultan of the English contemporary art world, Charles Saatchi, whose comprehensive shown co-sponsored by Phillips, de Pury auctioneers: Unveiled: New Art From the Middle East, was itself “unveiled” in 2007; the showing from the Gulf region at this year’s Frieze Art Fair is sparse to say the least.

Sherin Guirguis, Superfly, Watercolor and ink on hand cut Paper, 116.8 x 175.2 cm each. The Third Line

This year, only two participants: The Third Line Gallery from Dubai, and The Sommers Gallery from Israel were chosen by the vetting committee from the 500 international dealers who applied for a spot.

Although interest in the MENASA region has certainly hit New York, if evidenced by the growing interest and rising prices for artists such as Sheva Ahmedi or Reza Derkashani at galleries such as Leila Heller in Chelsea, and auctioneers such as Phillips, de Pury — the trendier version of Sotheby’s and Christie’s — regularly includes Middle Eastern artists in their contemporary auctions,  one must guess that references to Moshiri or Al Doudani, still do not trip off the tongue of the cognescenti of contemporary art in London, as easily as do those of the young bad boy Hirst and the old bad boy Bacon — the hometown’s contemporary art heroes.

Perhaps this “cool” attitude towards MENASA art, hails from the pre-internet art world, as for many previous centuries — the “near, far, and middle-east,” were a hazy concept for the English.

Perceptions of the vast and multi-cultured peoples East of Turkey and West of Asia were formed in the 19th century in a paternalistic Colonial world — and then polished into seductive mythology — in the 20th  century gleaned from “local color” thrown into journalistic dispatches sent from battles fought in the North African theaters of the two World Wars.

As to a discussion of a “market” for Middle Eastern art, a London dealer or auctioneer would most certainly have, and might still, refer to the waxing and waning of the demand for Orientalist paintings by the the prolific French and English perpetuators of the typical Arabic stereotypes — albeit beautifully done, pointing to artists of the genre such as Jean Leon Gerome, whose scantily clad ‘hareeem girls” have been a longtime favorite in English drawing rooms.

Westerners have begun to appreciate some of the best of the Middle Eastern Modernists working during the same post WWII period as Western masters such as Pollock, de Kooning and Rauschenberg.

And although prices for some of these artists have begun to creep into the range of mid to lower-range internationally recognized Western artists of the period, their ascent is still in its infancy.

Interestingly, another test of this Middle Eastern Modern (as opposed to contemporary) market will take place just a week after Frieze finishes, when Christie’s in Dubai auctions two masterpieces by the father of modern Egyptian painting, Mahmoud Saïd.

Said’s Whirling Dervishes, considered the artist’s masterpiece sold for $2.4 million, a world record, yet even that price is wholly dwarfed by the records for a UK Modern/Contemporary painter such as Francis Bacon, whose 1976 Tryptich fetched $86.3 million in 2008.

In fact, the $2.4 million for Said, barely vaults a work of art into Christie’s or Sothebys’ definition of “Part I” material — meaning the creme de la creme of a given genre, often auctioned off at a separate black-tie “evening sale.

After a special pre-sale viewing at the Emirates Tower hotel, the two works, Pêcheurs à Rosette and El Zar will cross Christie’s auction block on October 23rd, looking respectively for $400,000/600,000, and $150,000/200,000, and the demand for these two paintings, consigned by a private Egyptian collector close the artist’s family, will give the world yet another barometer for the demand for art from the Arab world.

However, one cannot look at the growth of the MENASA market in an entirely gloomy light. First, it is important with a nascent market that prices gtrow steadily, not speculatively, and that artists find a broad and deep collecting base, that can be sustained.

And with prices for artists such as Saudi Arabia’s Abdulnasser Gharem nudging towards the million dollar mark, along with the recent attention of the world’s press on what is now being dubbed, The Second Arab Spring, it would not be surprising to see this meager showing of art from the Middle East upped by a substantial margin by the time Frieze 2013 gets underway.