How To Classified Art Organizations
I would like to talk about an art institution that I visited, the Louvre Abu Dhabi, which is located in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates. I think it is a very special case.
Introductions Of History
In 2007, the UAE and France signed a US$1.27 billion agreement to establish a 30-year partnership with the Louvre Abu Dhabi. To obtain the right to use the name “Louvre”, the UAE paid France a licensing fee of US$520 million and an additional US$747 million to lend works of art.
In January 2017, the Louvre Abu Dhabi officially opened to the public with an inaugural exhibition featuring 300 works from the permanent collection, as well as 300 works of art on loan from French museums on a 10-year lease.
Halls And Collection
The Louvre Abu Dhabi covers an area of 24,000 square metres. It is the largest art museum on the Arabian Peninsula. Designed by French architect Jean Nouvel, the main body of the museum is a 180 metre long silver dome structure weighing 7,500 tonnes, the same weight as the Eiffel Tower in Paris. The skeleton is made up of 7,850 ‘star’ shaped structures, creating a natural jungle atmosphere and allowing sunlight to shine through the skeleton into the interior of the gallery.
The museum’s 8,000 square metre exhibition space, with 23 galleries in 55 separate buildings, is divided chronologically into 13 sections presenting prehistoric artefacts and contemporary art collections.
The 13 sections are Introduction, The First Tribes, The First Powers, Civilisations and Empires, Global Religions, Asian Trade Routes, From the Mediterranean to the Atlantic, Cosmography, A Look at the World, The Royal Collection, The Art of Living, The Modern World, Challenging Modernity, and The Global Present.
What I Saw
When I was there, they were having a special exhibition of Impressionism, you could see Monet, Degas,Van Gogh. Whether it is the planning of the exhibition units or the design of the exhibition routes, including the use of multimedia, it is clear that the people planning the exhibition are very professional. When I asked the staff, they told me that the exhibition was curated by staff from the Louvre in France who came to Abu Dhabi.
Beyond that, you can see Mondrian’s geometric lines. Leonardo da Vinci’s St. John the Baptist, and a number of heirloom masterpieces.
The architecture of this museum is also remarkable, although it was not built underground like the Louvre designed by I.M. Pei, but floats on the sea with a huge dome covering more than twenty small glass houses. Inspired by traditional Arab architecture, Jean Nouvel’s design is completely contemporary and makes this museum unique. You can see the light pouring down from the dome and the whole pavilion is filled with starbursts of light.
The staff is almost entirely local, with a few staff of other nationalities. For visitors, it is roughly 50/50 between locals and international audiences.
They also have their own app, where you can see a description of the collection (but not all the exhibits) in 7 languages, including Chinese, English, French, German , Russian, Arabic. You can listen to a guided tour of the entire museum and downloading the app is free. Admission to the Louvre Abu Dhabi is £7.50, half the price of the Louvre in France. Tickets are passes, so you don’t need to pay extra for the special exhibition, but you can only enter the special exhibition once with one ticket. The museum also has a café and souvenir shop inside.
It is worth noting that the exhibition route is very different from that of the Louvre in France, there is only one exhibition route (like IKEA) so visitors will never get lost or disorientated in the halls and, naturally, there is no official recommended exhibition route, which means that when you enter the museum you will walk the entire length of the halls.
What I Want To Say
The Louvre Abu Dhabi, a place where the UAE wants to show its artistic ambitions. It is clear that the artists as well as the artworks of the Middle East are little known, and despite the presence of scholars who study the culture and history of the Arab region (as well as Islamic art), the influence of art in the Middle East, including the UAE, is weak in the field of art, or furthermore in the field of contemporary art. The arrival of a ‘replica’ of the Louvre in Abu Dhabi would therefore be a major step forward for the UAE and the Middle East in terms of artistic impact in any sense.
It is a delicate issue for France. We know that cultural heritage in museums cannot be sold, but can the right to use cultural heritage in museums be sold? In France, a significant number of art professionals have protested against the actions of the French government, which they see as the “sale of the soul” of the Louvre through the massive sale of its treasures. However, the official response from the Louvre is also thought-provoking, it is worth noting that in 2007, Henri Loyrette, director of the Louvre, responded to a series of criticisms by telling Le Monde that museums cannot ignore internationalization because they have “scientific, educational, social and diplomatic missions”.
We saw the Guggenheim Museum was founded in New York in 1937 by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation and has opened branches in Bilbao (Spain), Venice (Italy), Berlin (Germany) and Las Vegas (USA). On the one hand, the museum chain helps to increase financial income, but it also serves as a means of increasing influence. And now not only private but also public museums are going down this road in various forms. Also in November, 2017, the British V&A Museum opened its pavilion at the Shekou Sea World Art Center in Shenzhen. Both Shenzhen and Abu Dhabi are following the same path – with excellent economic results, the emerging young cities need cultural landmarks and cultural influence. From this point of view, the opening of branches of well-known museums in emerging cities in other countries is a matter of necessity.
If we try to use major and minor to define the Louvre Abu Dhabi, I think it would be confusing, on the one hand it should be defined as major because it is dominated by the government and has a huge expenditure; and it enjoys a reputation, for a world class museum like the Louvre (which is undoubtedly major), a title is like a brand, no matter where the Louvre is mentioned, people think of the glorious artistic heritage. What is more, its exhibitions are among the best in the world, and it is clear that they have invited many professional curators to organise them, who can be said to be very attentive. On the other hand, despite the Louvre title, its fame is far less than that of the French Louvre (which is to be expected), with 1 million visitors in 2018 (I think we need to take a leaf out of the visitor numbers before the coronavirus pandemic), and the French Louvre topping 10 million visitors in the same year. I think a pressing issue for UAE arts officials is how to attract more visitors to Abu Dhabi to see some of the artistic heritage they can see in Europe.
On a deeper level, can we rely on building galleries or museums to increase the influence of art in a region or even the world? Can the purchase of world-famous paintings by galleries and museums help to revive local culture? The world’s most expensive work of art, Leonardo da Vinci’s “Salvator Mundi” fetched a record price of $450 million at Christie’s in November 2017, and soon the world-record price became a global topic of conversation, but there was much debate about who was behind the mysterious buyer. It was only a month later that the mystery was revealed: the buyer was the Ministry of Culture and Tourism of the Emirate of Abu Dhabi, and the painting would be exhibited in the Louvre Abu Dhabi. The 450 million dollar Messiah is both an addition to the Louvre Abu Dhabi’s collection and a public relations effort to promote it to the world.
In the post-colonial era, art discourse is not in the hands of niche art, nor is it likely to be transferred to non-mainstream art. Moving the Louvre to Abu Dhabi is not going to raise the profile of Islamic art. Only efforts to use expensive gimmicks to promote the prosperity of Arab art and culture and to increase the global visibility of Islamic art, if this is not done, more famous paintings and museums will be in vain.
(I’m so sorry I didn’t have enough time to share another art organization :(，I will continue to edit and add to this blog. ）
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