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Preview: Louvre Abu Dhabi’s “Birth of a Museum”
Equestrian Portrait of Maharao Sheodan Singh of Alwar, c. 1863, opaque watercolor with gold highlights on paper. © Louvre Abu Dhabi and Agence photo F.
In anticipation of its 2015 opening, the Louvre Abu Dhabi (LAD) is unveiling 130 works from the museum’s fast-growing permanent collection. “Birth of a Museum,” opening April 22, is LAD’s second exhibition at the Manarat al Saadiyat (the Saadiyat Cultural District’s arts and culture center) and will outline the future institution’s provocative conceptual structure and sweeping guiding narrative.
In 2009, LAD showed a selection of their early purchases at its inaugural exhibition “Talking Art: Louvre Abu Dhabi” and subsequently initiated their monthly “Talking Art” program, a series of lectures held by curators and academics that doubles as a platform for revealing new works. These programs will continue to provide an opportunity for the public to engage with the collection directly in the period leading up to the official opening.
OSMAN HAMDI BEY, A Young Emir Studying, 1878, oil on canvas. © Louvre Abu Dhabi and Agence photo F.
In the same vein, the second exhibition, “Birth of a Museum,” will be an expanded preview of the museum’s new acquisitions. Highlighting their commitment to complex and varying artistic creations, the show will further LAD’s mission as a “universal museum.”
When asked in a recent phone interview to elaborate on this touchstone, LAD senior project manager Hissa al Dhaheri conveyed a desire to transgress existing binaries: “The museum aims to show a comparative narrative, where works are exhibited together in the same gallery, crossing geographical boundaries and time periods. It is a chance to create connections between the works that come from various perspectives and backgrounds.”
Bactrian Princess, late third millennium BCE to early second millennium BCE, body and headdress: chlorite, face: calcite. © Louvre Abu Dhabi and Thierry Ollivier.
Divided into six themed sections—Figures, Ancient Worlds, The Sacred, The Eastern Image, The Western Gaze, Cultures in Dialogue—antiquities such as a statue of a Bactrian Princess will be adjacent to classical works such as Jacob Jordaens’ The Good Samaritan and contemporary works by Yves Klein, Cy Twombly and Pablo Picasso.
ArtAsiaPacific will cover the opening of “Birth of a Museum” later this month, along with the progress of the Louvre Abu Dhabi building, designed by Jean Nouvel.
Sylvia Tsai is assistant editor of ArtAsiaPacific.