Louvre Abu Dhabi, a cultural cornerstone where East meets West

The Emirates’ aim: to promote the capital as a tolerant global city, and its newly opened flagship museum as a bridge between civilisations

(Photography by AP)

A decade ago French architect Jean Nouvel sketched the bare outlines of a fretted dome on flimsy paper. Today this enormous metallic-silver canopy rises over desert sands and the Persian Gulf – marking the new Louvre Abu Dhabi museum and the global ambitions of France and the United Arab Emirates to deploy art as a diplomatic tool they call “soft power”.

The vast dome and clusters of waterfront galleries beneath it opened to the public on 11 November, with sunlight cascading through the lacework of stainless steel and aluminium and layers of star-shaped patterns. It’s been a long wait for those thousands of stars to align – with five years of construction delays and technical challenges to build the estimated $650m (£494m) flagship on Saadiyat Island, by a lagoon near the capital city.

And the museum’s history is also turbulent – a saga of economic downturn, collapsing oil prices, regional political tensions and fierce French intellectual debates about the risks of lending its national treasures to the Middle East in exchange for petrodollars. Through it all the Louvre Abu Dhabi has brought together East and West and also managed to unite France’s fractious national museums, which submerged envy and ego to cooperate on the project brokered by two governments.

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“Although a lot has changed, not a lot has changed here,” said Nouvel, inspecting the museum village last week, where workmen rushed to plant garden blooms and dig one courtyard for a Rodin sculpture recently arrived from France. “The principle is that it remains a museum that belongs to the geography, and culture and identity of the country.”

But which country is that? Since the opening date was announced in September, planes have been roaring out of Paris about every two days for Abu Dhabi, with national treasures. The precious passengers included a self-portrait of van Gogh, Monet’s 1877 painting of the Saint-Lazare railroad station and Napoleon himself – a portrait of the emperor crossing the Alps on a rearing white horse, by Jacques-Louis David.

The Louvre Abu Dhabi is the result of a rare government accord in 2007 between France and this young, oil-rich monarchy on the Persian Gulf. The UAE is leasing the powerful Louvre brand for €400m (£358m) for more than 30 years. Eventually it will pay a total of €974m for French expertise, guidance and loans.

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In return, 17 French museums and institutions shipped 300 artworks here this year, from Leonardo da Vinci’s portrait La Belle Ferronnière to massive marble nymphs from Versailles. French museum experts are also advising the Emiratis on what to acquire and organising temporary exhibitions for up to 15 years.

“Soft power is now the catchword of all diplomats,” said Zaki Anwar Nusseibeh, the UAE minister of state, who was an adviser from the beginning when the museum was simply a sketch and its future site was inhabited by nesting turtles and seashells. “It means it is no longer sufficient to have military or economic power if you are not able to share your values. Exchange – this is what soft power is about.”

The public opening – with an appearance three days earlier by French President Emmanuel Macron, and flyovers with the Louvre’s name on the wings of the country’s national Etihad airlines – comes as the monarchy is also engaged in a diplomatic boycott of neighbouring Qatar, over allegations that Qatar supports extremists.

Nusseibeh said his government considers the Louvre Abu Dhabi part of a cultural strategy to counter tensions in the region. The Emirates’ ultimate aim is to promote the capital as a tolerant global city, and its flagship museum as a bridge between civilisations.

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“The priority is to invest heavily in education and culture,” he said, speaking at his art-filled country home outside Abu Dhabi. “This has become more important because of what happened with the radicalisation of groups that have kidnapped Islam [for their own political purposes]. It is against everything that this country stands for.”

Despite those lofty goals, the gritty reality of geopolitics intrudes in the country’s budding cultural sphere. In late October, as preparations were under way to hang the paintings, a local judo athlete at Abu Dhabi’s international Grand Slam tournament refused to shake hands after losing to an Israeli competitor.

Image-conscious government sports officials rushed to apologise formally for the snub and to pose for photographs with the Israeli athletes.

Maymanah Farhat, an independent curator and art historian, said the nation’s new cultural projects do not always deflect intolerance. She cited several incidents, including that of Andrew Ross, a labour specialist, who was barred by the United Arab Emirates from entering the country to conduct research at the new New York University satellite campus after he criticised construction conditions for workers in Abu Dhabi. Since then, Ross said he remained doubtful about the intentions of government leaders, calling their cultural strategy “promotional rhetoric”. (Ross, a co-founder of the Gulf Labour Artist Coalition, said the advocacy group was continuing its boycott of the Saadiyat Island cultural district to seek improvement in workers’ wages.)

Chairman of Abu Dhabi Tourism and Culture Authority, Mohamed Khalifa Al Mubarak (Getty)

This year, a journalism professor was denied entry to teach there and he blamed the ban on government suspicions about his Shiite Muslim background.

Meanwhile, the Emiratis are pressing forward with their higher ambitions – led by officials often educated in the United States and more likely to speak flawless English than French.

In many ways, the government regards its costly cultural strategy to open the Louvre Abu Dhabi and then another long-delayed museum outpost – the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, designed by Frank Gehry – as the diplomatic approach of the 15th-century House of Medici that solidified its power, influence and image from Florence, Italy, through the patronage of art and architecture.

The ambitious project “was a bit far-fetched to a lot of people,” said Mohamed Khalifa Al Mubarak, chairman of the Abu Dhabi Tourism and Culture Authority, and a Northeastern University graduate in economics and political science.

Ten years ago the global museum community was united in opposing the notion of “renting” national treasures and risking damage by shipping them afar. But time has worn critics down, along with the general acceptance of the constant travel of artworks globally for exhibitions.

“I was completely against this project,” said Didier Rykner, director of La Tribune de l’Art, a French online art publication, who organised petitions against the project because he believed the deal was motivated purely by politics and finance. “But with time, with the contract, you must do it. It should be done. But I think it shouldn’t be done this way.”

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His concern remains the possibility of damage during the transport of artworks. He also says that the Louvre Abu Dhabi rushed its opening to coincide with an Abu Dhabi contemporary art fair in the capital. And Rykner questions whether security preparations are adequate.

Museum officials contend that they are ready and that the site has been inspected recently by the French Ministry of Culture for security and temperature controls.

“It’s completely secure,” said Laurence des Cars, director of the Musée d’Orsay and former curatorial director for the Abu Dhabi project, who is sending the self-portrait by van Gogh and The Fifer, by Manet.

The bounty is evident for many of the 13 French museums in the group. The Fontainebleau castle is lending a giant 16th-century bronze, the Apollon du Belvédère. In turn, it is receiving a cheque for about $5.8m that it will invest to restore its own Imperial Theatre, which will be renamed for Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, President of the United Arab Emirates.

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The Musée de Cluny, which is lending a jewelled 13th-century box, is funding half of an $8.8m renovation of its reception area with money from the Louvre Abu Dhabi project. A small part of the Louvre Abu Dhabi is dedicated to contemporary and modern art. The rest focuses on telling the story of world histories and religions, with an emphasis on mixing works from different places.

Beyond loans, the team of six curators has been scouting for art from private collections. These curators have acquired more than 600 works, including Piet Mondrian’s 1922 Composition With Blue, Red, Yellow and Black, bought in 2009 for $27.9m at Christie’s auction of the collection of Yves St Laurent and Pierre Bergé. Another important purchase was the Renaissance painting Madonna and Child by Giovanni Bellini, which museum officials say demonstrates a commitment to highlighting works that reflect different religions.

“What is the Louvre Abu Dhabi? It’s a narrative of humankind from the beginning of knowledge, using art as a witness of the times,” said Jean-François Charnier, the project’s chief curator and scientific director for Agence France-Museums.

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The museum commissioned a piece by American artist Jenny Holzer, who carved three stone walls with scripts in cuneiform, Arabic and French, drawing from a Sumerian creation myth and an essay on self-determination by Michel de Montaigne, the Renaissance philosopher. “I had to have the content reviewed, but no one said no,” she said, when asked if there were any restrictions. She hopes to create an app for museum visitors to pick their own creation myths to project on the stone walls.

Abu Dhabi officials are preparing for the future. Al Mubarak predicted that the Louvre Abu Dhabi would have a domino effect and that the construction contract for the long-planned Guggenheim Abu Dhabi could be awarded next year. (A Guggenheim spokesman declined to comment.)

In the meantime, Jean-Luc Martinez, director of the Louvre Museum, said the project had already had a dramatic effect in France. “Thanks to the Louvre Abu Dhabi, our museums were forced to work together after 50 years of development.”

“We have some egos,” he added, with Gallic understatement. “That’s a revolution in mentality.”

© New York Times