After a Sputtering Start, the Louvre Abu Dhabi Project Gathers Pace

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/27/world/middleeast/27iht-m27-gulf-louvre.html

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ABU DHABI — As recently as a year ago, it seemed likely that the much-acclaimed Louvre Abu Dhabi project would never see the light of day. The gleaming white, U.F.O.-like building, designed by Jean Nouvel and originally due to open in 2013, had been on hold since the global financial crisis flattened the Gulf property and financial markets in 2009.

Only last October, the $27 billion cultural hub of Saadiyat Island, the site of the proposed museum, announced yet another in a string of delays for the planned museum and other ambitious cultural projects, like the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi.

Yet in January the Louvre Abu Dhabi finally confirmed a new opening date of 2015, and starting next month the public will be offered an opportunity to see how the museum’s permanent collection is being shaped by investments in new acquisitions.

The acquisitions will be the focus of the second edition of the Louvre Abu Dhabi: Talking Art series of lectures organized jointly by the Tourism and Culture Authority of Abu Dhabi, Agence France-Muséums and the École du Louvre. Running from Oct. 3 to June next year, the lectures aim is to open a dialogue with the public and give a preview of the museum’s narrative and collection ahead of its opening.

The Talking Art program “is a way to get the public involved, interested, keep them up to date, and share some of our collection,” Hessa Al Dhaheri, project manager of the Louvre Abu Dhabi, said by telephone. “Acquisition of new works has been ongoing since 2007, but we show them to the public bit by bit so that each lecture touches upon one scene in the museum.”

Among the additions to the collection to be highlighted by the series will be one of the finest known examples of a standing Bactrian Princess, or earth goddess, dating from the end of the third millennium before the Christian era.

Other objects and artworks include a beautifully preserved pavement and foundation ensemble dating from the early Ottoman period; Paul Gauguin’s masterpiece “Breton Boys Wrestling,” painted in 1888; and the first pieces in a planned photography collection, including Joseph Girault de Prangey’s “Ayoucha,” the earliest known photographic representation of a veiled woman.

“We’ve had a variety of themes in our public programs so far, presenting the idea of crossroads and of connecting different types of work from different periods,” said Laurence des Cars, curatorial director of Agence France-Muséums, a company set up in 2007 under an agreement between France and the United Arab Emirates, and financed by the Emirates, to oversee the Louvre Abu Dhabi project.

“The Louvre Abu Dhabi is a symbol of universality, open to different civilizations, cultures, artistic techniques and expressions through time,” she added.

The presentation of the new works follows close on the long-awaited opening of the Islamic Art wing of the Musée du Louvre in Paris last week. The Louvre’s new galleries, 10 years in the making, show 15,000 works from the museum’s Islamic art collection and 3,400 pieces loaned from the Musée des Arts Decoratifs.

Masterpieces, many being displayed to the public for the first time, are presented in glass cases spread over two floors.

While art critics have lauded the sheer scale and diversity of what is now one of the largest collections of Islamic Art under one roof, some have also criticized the display and the labeling of the works as random and betraying an unfamiliarity with some of the cultures represented.

The Louvre Abu Dhabi, is an entirely separate museum from the Louvre in Paris, Ms. des Cars said, although the two are linked by a 30-year branding and training agreement and the Paris Louvre is one of the 12 shareholders in Agence France-Muséums.

The Abu Dhabi museum’s Talking Art lecture series is “an essential step in building awareness of the future museum and its collection, enriched by new, exceptional acquisitions,” commented Henri Loyrette, the director of the Paris Louvre.

“It is also important for the transmission of know-how and expertise ahead of the museum opening,” he added.

In addition to the lecture series, the Louvre Abu Dhabi is organizing an exhibition that will open to the public in April 2013. Entitled “Birth of a Museum,” it too will present select pieces from the museum’s collection, with a version of the show also scheduled to be shown at the Louvre in Paris.

The Louvre Abu Dhabi first started sharing its collection with the public through an exhibition entitled “Talking Art: Louvre Abu Dhabi,” which opened in May 2009. The exhibition presented the first 19 acquisitions for the institution, including a Mamluk holy Koran from the 14th century, a 5th-century Fibula from Domagnano, a Virgin and Child by Bellini, and Mondrian’s Composition with blue, red, yellow and black from 1922.

“It’s not only a question of presence of works of art lent by French museums, but also about training people and having an institution that will be at the level of international standards,” Ms. des Cars said. “The idea is to take the Louvre as a symbol of excellence, adapt it to a new context and country and modern time, and experience the idea of universality in a fresh way.”

The Louvre Abu Dhabi has also been working with the Sorbonne Abu Dhabi, a local branch of the French university, to set up a master’s program for museum professionals to train them and help them respond to local needs.

“When speaking about Emirati identity, we have to look back at the roots of our identity and realize that the Emirates is a crossroads of trade and cultural exchange,” Ms. Dhaheri said. “This is the concept that the museum is going to embody and emphasize, this exchange and universality, expressed through art.”