Displaying items by tag: Abu Dhabi

The British Museum’s proposed loans for Abu Dhabi could be worth up to £1bn. The most valuable item earmarked is an Assyrian relief from Nimrud, the Banquet Scene (645–635BC), which was revalued last year at £100m. No longer on display since it was placed on a reserve list, the world’s finest Assyrian relief is now languishing in the London institution’s store, awaiting its likely loan in 2017 for a five-year stay in the Gulf.

Five other antiquities on the list earmarked for Abu Dhabi are valued at more than £250m.

On Saturday, February 22, over 40 protesters took over the Guggenheim in New York. Organized by a coalition of groups called the Gulf Ultra Luxury Faction (G.U.L.F.), the 20-minute intervention was staged to draw attention to the poor labor conditions at the construction site of the Guggenheim’s outpost in Abu Dhabi. A “manifesto for action” hung on the Guggenheim’s wall until it was torn down by a security guard.

According to Occupy Museums, the manifesto read, “Is this the future of art? Guggenheim is expanding its museum empire to a luxury island in Abu Dhabi. The migrant workers labor in 130 degree heat and essentially debt bondage conditions. Human Rights Watch and Call Labor are investigating this exploitation. Culture is not a debt spiral. Art should not violate human rights. Art is not a luxury asset of the 1%. Art is an act of freedom not bondage. Exploitation is not the future of art."

A number of cultural institutions including the Louvre and New York University are constructing outposts in Abu Dhabi. According to multiple reports, laborers are required to work long hours in intense heat for low wages and live in cramped, windowless rooms. If the workers complain to authorities about the conditions, they are threatened with violence.

The Guggenheim has yet to comment on the protest.

The Louvre’s new outpost in Abu Dhabi, which is slated to open in 2015, has assembled the 130 paintings, miniatures, sculptures, and other artworks that will form its permanent collection. Museum officials allowed reporters a sneak peek of the works including paintings by Pablo Picasso (1881-1973), Rene Magritte (1898-1967), Édouard Manet (1832-1883), and Paul Gauguin (1848-1903). The entire collection will be on view from April 22 to July 20, 2013 as part of the exhibition The Birth of a Museum at a gallery on the island of Saadiyat, close to where construction for the new museum is currently underway.

Louvre Abu Dhabi’s collection is comprised of numerous works from private collections, many of which have never been on public view before. Highlights from the museum’s holdings include Picasso’s gouache, ink, and collage work on paper Portrait of a Lady (1928); Gauguin’s Children Wrestling (1888); and Paul Klee’s (1879-1940) Oriental Bliss (1938).

The Louvre’s new venue, which was designed by the French architect Jean Nouvel, is the museum’s first branch outside of France. The venture is expected to bring the Louvre and its French partner museums approximately $1.31 million over 30 years. The Louvre also has an offshoot location in the northern city of Lens.

Abu Dhabi has finally awarded a $653 million contract to build a branch of the Louvre Museum to Arabtec Holding Co., a Dubai-based construction company, which is partly owned by Abu Dhabi. The Louvre has been planning the outpost since March 2007, but was sidetracked by a number of delays prompted by a public spending review of Abu Dhabi’s government.

The Louvre’s new 688,890-square-foot location, which will be designed by the French architect Jean Nouvel, is expected to open in 2015. The museum’s inauguration will be followed by the opening of the Zayed National Museum, which is being built in association with the British Museum in 2016 as well as a franchise of New York’s Guggenheim Museum in 2017. All three of the museums will be part of a development located off the coast of Abu Dhabi City on Saadiyat Island.

The Louvre Museum in Abu Dhabi is part of the country’s effort to establish itself as a cultural hub as well as a noteworthy tourist destination. Arabtec, which won the project after a competitive bidding process, is expected to begin construction on the museum immediately.

After twelve years at the helm of the world’s busiest museum, Henri Loyrette announced that he will leave his post at the Musée du Louvre in April of 2013. Before becoming the president and director of the Louvre, Loyrette served as the first curator and then the director of Paris’ Musée d’Orsay from 1994 to 2001 and has served as France’s chief curator of heritage since 1975. Loyrette has already informed the president of France, François Hollande, and the country’s minister of culture of his departure.

The Louvre attracts more visitors each year than any other institution in the world and Loyrette has managed to keep that number on the rise. In fact, the number of visitors has almost doubled under Loyrette’s leadership; 5.1 million patrons were reported in 2001 and by the end of 2012, almost 10 million people will have visited the Louvre this year.

However, Loyrette did much more than increase attendance during his time at the Louvre. He is responsible for implementing the museum’s contemporary art program and has organized exhibitions by Cy Twombly (1928-2011), Anselm Kiefer (b. 1945), and many other renowned modern artists. Loyrette employed a new policy that relied on crowd-sourced fundraising and launched a number of successful public campaigns that asked art enthusiasts to help the museum make important acquisitions. Loyrette also oversaw the opening of the Louvre’s outpost in the northern city of Lens as well as the expansion of the museum’s Islamic art galleries, which opened earlier this year.

Loyrette will no longer be in charge when the Louvre’s outpost in Abu Dhabi opens. The controversial project stirred debate in the French art world as Abu Dhabi has paid nearly $1.3 billion to use the Louvre name for thirty years and to gain access to the museum’s collection during that time. Designed by French architect Jean Nouvel, the Abu Dhabi location is slated to open in 2015.

Bulgarian-born artist, Christo, is best known for his large-scale artworks that transform their environments. Working with his late wife, Jeanne-Claude, Christo draped Berlin’s parliament building, the Reichstag, in metallic-colored fabric (1995); completely wrapped Paris’ oldest bridge, the Pont Neuf, in 450,000-square-feet of golden material (1985); and surrounded 11 islands in Florida’s Biscayne Bay in pink fabric (1983).

The artist’s next endeavor is expected to be the world’s biggest permanent sculpture and will cost approximately $340 million, making it the most expensive as well. The structure, which will be built in the desert of Al Gharbia, 100 miles from Abu Dhabi, is a flat-topped pyramid that will stand 492 feet tall. The sculpture, titled The Mastaba, will be made out of 410,000 oil barrels painted in various colors inspired by the yellow and red sands of the desert, which will create the effect of an Islamic mosaic.

Christo and Jeanne-Claude conceived the idea for The Mastaba over 30 years ago, but were derailed by the Iran-Iraq war, among other things. Working with Sheikh Hamdan bin Zayed al-Nahyan, the representative of Abu Dhabi’s crown prince, Christo financed the project through sales of his own works and funds from various investors.

The Mastaba, which will take about 30 months to complete, will be Jean-Claude and Christo’s only permanent large-scale work.

The Abu Dhabi developer building a vast cultural district in the Emirati capital said Monday a branch of the famed Louvre museum will open there in late 2013, despite questions about the timetable for another part of the project.

The Tourism Development and Investment Company said a branch of the Parisian art institution will be the first museum to open in the Saadiyat Island cultural district, a year behind schedule. Plans originally called for a 2012 opening date.

TDIC's comments came a day after the state-run developer disclosed it had dropped a tender seeking bids for major construction work on a branch of the Guggenheim Museum, raising questions about that project's future.

The developer insisted that all projects on the island will be completed.

"TDIC continuously monitors the delivery of its projects to ensure they remain on schedule, within budget and that TDIC's high standards are upheld throughout the process. TDIC is moving forward as planned with all of its announced projects including all the projects on Saadiyat," the company said.