Museum of the world
A project ten years in the making, the UAE’s Louvre Abu Dhabi recently opened its doors at the end of 2017. GLOSS took the grand tour to see if it lives up to the wait and hype.
British Museum. Metropolitan Museum of Art. Uffizi Gallery. These are merely three renowned art ventures which have brought cultural enlightenment to the people in their countries.
And soon to join these names will be the Louvre Abu Dhabi, the first museum of its kind in the Arab world.
Rising From The Sand
The tale of the world’s newest cultural monument is tied to one of the world’s oldest, the Louvre, though with different stories of origin.
“It took 800 years for the Louvre to become the Louvre, and it only took 10 years for another Louvre to be born in Abu Dhabi,” Jean Luc Martinez, Director of the Louvre, Paris, is reported to have said.
The Louvre Abu Dhabi officially opened its doors on 11th November, a little over ten-and-a-half years after the UAE and France entered an unprecedented partnership to unite in a cultural exchange, with the newly-opened art establishment to be the crowning jewel of this agreement.
Part of the agreement includes the loan of the Louvre name – which cost a reported $520m – for 30.5 years as well as loans of artwork for 10 years, and temporary exhibitions for 15 years, including a provision of management expertise in the years to come.
In spite of this agreement, the idea of the museum itself was founded before the million-dollar name association came into being.
“Louvre Abu Dhabi embodies our belief that nations thrive on diversity and acceptance, with a curatorial narrative that emphasises how interconnected the world has always been. The museum forms one element of Abu Dhabi’s cultural strategy, which safeguards our rich heritage and catalyses creativity,” said His Excellency Mohamed Khalifa Al Mubarak, Chairman of Abu Dhabi Tourism & Culture Authority and Tourism Development & Investment Company.
See Humanity In A New Light
Featuring art and artefacts from throughout human history – representing every period from ancient times to the modern day – and from all over the globe, the wide-reaching collection features over 600 pieces. While half of these are on loan from other institutions, the rest are from the Louvre Abu Dhabi›s own permanent collection which has been amassed in the past decade.
The first acquisition ever made for the museum is a 1922 Piet Mondrian painting, while the oldest is a Bactrian princess piece from Central Asia. Highlights from loaned works of art include Leonardo da Vinci’s La Belle Ferronnière, Vincent van Gogh’s self-portrait, a rare ivory saltcellar from the Benin Empire, the Globe by Vincenzo Coronelli, Jacques-Louis David’s Napoleon Crossing the Alps, and Standing Woman II by Alberto Giacometti, to name just six.
Visitors may wonder what sets this museum apart from others? Upon closer inspection one will notice that the artwork in the galleries is not arranged by origin but chronologically and thematically instead, placing pieces like the French Virgin and Child next to the Dancing Shiva statuette, juxtaposing works to illustrate similarities and dialogues between cultures, civilisations, and religion.
The project then – estimated at a whopping $1.3b – is one which focuses on bridging the gap between Eastern and Western art, and armed with the expertise of 13 French museums and institutions steered by the Agence France-Muséums, the Louvre Abu Dhabi will indeed offer visitors a unique experience including a brand new journey through major works of art from different civilisations, mirrored to reveal our common humanity.
“With a unique global narrative and a vision to explore the history of art in a fresh context, Louvre Abu Dhabi is a place where visitors can come to understand their own and others’ cultures. Its ground-breaking architecture complements a presentation of exceptional treasures that represent a snapshot of humanity’s creativity, and paves the way for new discussions,” said Manuel Rabaté, Director of Louvre Abu Dhabi.
The 23 galleries are subdivided into 12 chapters and begin in the Grand Vestibule where visitors are introduced to important themes such as maternity and funerary rituals.
From here, museum-goers traverse through history setting sights upon ancient statues and texts before reaching more contemporary takes on arts like abstract and surrealism.
Louvre Abu Dhabi is also home to a number of site-specific works installed in the outdoor areas by contemporary artists Jenny Holzer and Giuseppe Penone.
The former created three engraved stone walls named For Louvre Abu Dhabi (2017), citing important historical texts from Ibn Khaldun›s Muqaddimah, the Mesopotamian bilingual (Akkadian/Sumerian) Creation Myth tablet, and the 1588 annotated edition of Michel de Montaigne›s Les Essais.
The latter, on the other hand, produced Leaves of Light (2017), a vast bronze tree with mirrors placed in its branches as well as Propagation (2017). This is a wall of porcelain tiles that depict hand-drawn concentric circles originating from the fingerprint of Sheikh Zayed, the UAE’s Founding Father. It was produced in collaboration with the workshops of Sèvres – Cité de la céramique in France.
In addition to the galleries, the museum also houses a Children’s Museum, a restaurant, a boutique and a café, and will also be playing host to revolving exhibitions, two of which – From One Louvre to Another: Opening a Museum for Everyone and Co-Lab: Contemporary Art and Savoir-faire – launched last month.
An Architectural Feat
The one-of-a-kind artistic experience does not just start inside the walls of the Louvre Abu Dhabi. No, the museum itself is a work of art.
Nestled on Saadiyat Island›s cultural district, the significance of the geometric shapes carved into the dome of the establishment can be easily traced back to their inspiration – the heritage of the country.
The man behind the mission, award-winning Pritzker Prize-winning architect Jean Nouvel, checked all the boxes when it came to creating the balanced design that the heads behind the Louvre Abu Dhabi were searching for.
It is stunning enough to rival the skyscrapers on the horizon, is culturally relevant, and in spite of being an amalgam of open and enclosed spaces, it creates the perfect environment to house priceless artworks in. Nouvel accomplished this by harnessing the elements – namely water and light – to create a microclimate within the museum using the buildings’ light colours, for example, to reflect light thus keeping the interiors cool.
The Frenchman – known for his work with cultural institutions such as the Arab World Institute, the Fondation Cartier, and the Culture and Congress Centre – imagined a ‹museum city›, sitting on its own island, topped by a huge dome under which 55 white, rectangular buildings lie, representing a Middle Eastern madina. The dome is its protection like palm fronds are in an oasis, creating a respite from the desert heat.
The minimalistic feel of the museum gives even more presence to the crowning structure of the building, the steel-rendered dome which sits on four permanent piers hidden among the museum›s other buildings, imbuing it with a floating feel.
The best bit about the dome, though, is its complex eight-layered geometric structure which allows sunlight to seep through, casting ever-changing patterns on the museum›s floor – dubbed the Rain of Light – as the sun makes it circle through the day.
It features 7,850 complex star-shaped elements and has a circumference of 565m, weighing nearly as much as the Eiffel Tower.
“Louvre Abu Dhabi sets a benchmark for the region, attracting the next generation of talented museum professionals. It has reinvented the 18th-century premise of the universal museum for a demanding contemporary audience,» said the Director of Louvre Abu Dhabi.
“In a complex multi-narrative world, these ideas are more important than ever. By exhibiting works from diverse cultures in the same space, our curation shows the interconnectedness of different ideologies, aesthetics and artistic techniques. The museum story transports visitors through a history of humanity illuminated by our collection of exceptional treasures,” he added.
The Louvre Abu Dhabi then is a feat of engineering and art. And standing under 7,500 tonnes of metal on a manmade island in Abu Dhabi›s rapidly up-and-coming cultural district, surrounded by buildings containing some of the oldest and most prized artworks on the planet, it can be said, without a doubt, that 10 years of waiting was worth the end result.
