Abu Dhabi’s new cultural landmark: who is it for?

‘The nature of this “cash for culture” exchange has been controversial

LAST month, Athena travelled to the Gulf to attend—along with other gods of the art world—the opening of Louvre Abu Dhabi, which stands encircled by water on a sandbank from which Arabian fishermen once harvested pearls.

The city’s Sheikh Zayed Mosque may boast 82 shimmering domes, but the new museum, with its single celestial vault suspended over a medina of simple white blocks, transcends all for sheer beauty and restraint. Lapped by water, modelled and patterned by light, the ensemble lies low under its great fretted canopy as if in an oasis shaded by palms.

Although autonomous, the museum has been developed in collaboration with Agence France-muséums, a conglomerate of French institutions that has loaned Abu Dhabi the prestige of the name, as well as hundreds of artworks and curatorial expertise. For these, it has paid $1 billion (£744 million), largely provided by a fund derived from arms sellers’ investments administered by Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and head of the armed forces.

The nature of this ‘cash for culture’ exchange, as well as the treatment of the workforce, have been controversial.

In the galleries, a 5,000-year ‘narrative of global culture’ begins with an impressive array of treasures from the pre-historic and ancient worlds. It continues, in loosely chronological themed displays, by way of the expansion of civilisations, empires, religions and trade, to the Renaissance, royal Courts, the Industrial Revolution and modernity. The result is an astonishing rollercoaster ride featuring many exquisite—and often unexpected—objects, and one that, after the first few galleries, is noticeably Western in emphasis. So who is this spectacular melange aimed at?

In contrast to the usual aspirations of national museums, the widely vaunted ambition for this ‘universal museum at the crossroads of continents’ is to help heal conflict through ‘cross-cultural dialogue’. Laudable though this is, Athena wonders if ‘starchitecture’ and stellar artworks— particularly when removed from their cultural context—have the power to solve the turmoils of the Middle East. In her opinion, travel seems a much more powerful and realistic means of developing understanding and bonds between different cultures.

For all that, she applauds the completion of Louvre Abu Dhabi and hopes that it will weather the economic decline that has stalled other projects—such as Gehry’s Guggenheim, Foster’s Zayed National Museum and Zaha Hadid’s performingarts centre—conceived over the past decade to transform Saadiyat Island into the UAE’S cultural hub. Cooled by sea breezes as she wandered the museum’s terraces, she felt the greatest triumph to be the building itself, conceived by its architect as a Greek

agora: ‘a place to meet and talk about art and life in a context of total serenity’. Here, at least, she felt at home.