Abu dhabi

By Joelle Seligson

Soon, travelers seeking the world’s hottest arts destination will find themselves journeying to Abu Dhabi, capital of the United Arab Emirates (U.A.E.). A short drive from the airport will deliver culture-seekers to Saadiyat Island, the emirate’s lavish new tourist retreat where, between dips in shimmering Persian Gulf waters and rounds at championship golf courses, guests will tour the unparalleled museums seated in the $30 billion island’s cultural district.

That’s soon as in 2012, the due date for the district’s two most highly anticipated institutions: the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi Museum, the largest Guggenheim outpost yet, and the Louvre Abu Dhabi, the first such collaboration for the world’s most visited museum. It’s a rapid-fire pace considering the entire project only broke ground this year. Saadiyat Bridge, which will connect Abu Dhabi to the 17-square-mile island some 1,600 feet offshore, is a quarter of the way done as of September and will be completed in 2009.

The bridge is already bearing considerable weight. Abu Dhabi hopes its ten lanes of traffic will soon flood with tourists on their way to Saadiyat Island, the "Island of Happiness," thereby diversifying the emirate’s booming oil-based economy. Other hefty goals encircling the tiny island: Establish Abu Dhabi as the cultural capital of the Middle East. Instill the Arab world with a renewed sense of artistic identity. Create a figurative bridge of understanding and appreciation between East and West, as well as East and East.

Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, crown prince of Abu Dhabi and chairman of its governing executive council, clarified the island’s lofty objectives at the January opening of an exhibition of design models for the cultural district. "The aim of Saadiyat Island must be to create a cultural asset for the world—a gateway and beacon for cultural experience and exchange," he said. "Culture crosses all boundaries, and therefore Saadiyat will belong to the people of the U.A.E., the greater Middle East and the world at large."

But if they build it, will tourists come? And if and when they arrive in Abu Dhabi, will visitors find one of the finest arts complexes ever constructed—or, as has been the case in other culture-seeking cities nearby, a series of fantastic buildings filled with priceless works but lacking adequately trained staff to maintain and interpret them? Those with money and reputations at stake have described Saadiyat Island as a guaranteed win-win. Outsiders who have criticized the Eastern and Western ends of the deal for attempting to purchase and sell off culture, though, worry that both parties will lose out in the long run.

Thirty billion dollars borders on chump change in Abu Dhabi, which is one of the world’s richest cities; the average net worth of each of its 420,000 citizens is $17 million. But $30 billion has been enough to procure the use of the priciest art and A-list architects. Frank Gehry signed on to design the 450,000-square-foot branch of the Guggenheim, to be sited on a manmade peninsula specifically created for the building on the island’s northwest tip. Not to be outdone by his past work, Gehry’s plan for Abu Dhabi is a wild miscellany of jarring angles and glass chutes. They will surround clusters of galleries, joined by catwalks and circling covered courtyards.

Jean Nouvel’s vision for the Louvre Abu Dhabi resembles a small city, a suite of one-room buildings beneath a translucent dome that uses water and wind to form its own microclimate, imbuing visitors with "a feeling of entering a different world," according to his design statement. France’s additional contributions to the Saadiyat Island project will include the use of the Louvre’s name for 30 years and contributions of artwork and expertise from a dozen French museums, unified as the Agence France-Muséums to oversee the deal. The cultural district also will present the Sheikh Zayed National Museum in 2012; a maritime museum designed by Tadao Ando and a performing arts center by Zaha Hadid will open later in the decade.

Big names with bigger price tags are no new trend for the U.A.E. Abu Dhabi is following in the flamboyant footsteps of sister emirate Dubai, known for its skyscraping luxury hotels and indoor ski slopes erected amid sweltering desert. Abu Dhabi envisions itself as the cultural counterpart to Dubai’s 21st-century playground.

"Dubai has obviously had enormous success in mass tourism," explains Barry Lord, co-president of Lord Cultural Resources, a leading international museum-planning firm hired to help form the cultural district. "Abu Dhabi realized that it could fill the niche of cultural tourism, and that’s its focus." While the two emirates are rivals "in the same sense that New York and Chicago are rivals," they are more complementary than competing, he adds.

Abu Dhabi began staking out its artistic corner in 2004, when the Abu Dhabi Tourism Authority first discussed transforming Saadiyat Island into a top-notch tourist destination. Vision turned to action in 2004 with the establishment of the Tourism Development Investment Company (TDIC), which is spearheading the project. TDIC’s master plan for the island comprises seven districts. Along with the cultural district, which will deliver "world-class culture on a scale and scope not seen in living memory," per a TDIC brochure, the districts include Saadiyat Beach, a "unique setting where dolphins frolic in azure waters"; Saadiyat Marina, the island’s "commercial powerhouse" equipped with berthing for 1,000 boats; and the Wetlands, offering "spacious and luxurious villas enjoying championship golf and natural tidal wetland views." The agency estimates that 150,000 residents will call the currently uninhabited island home.

Even the lure of a lush island sanctuary may not immediately convince tourists—many of whom do not discern the U.A.E. from its war-torn neighbors—to journey here. "One of the problems is distinguishing between different parts of the Middle East," Lord notes. "Obviously going to Saudi Arabia, going to Iran, going to Iraq is a totally different proposition than going to these little countries in the Gulf. There’s a marketing job to be done of communicating that there isn’t just -a Middle East; there are a whole lot of very unique societies that are extremely safe in terms of security and that have a lot to offer not only in terms of museums but otherwise as well."

Millions of foreigners do travel here each year, and at increasing rates. Five million more international tourists visited the Middle East in 2007 than in 2006, according to the World Tourism Organization, which described the region as "one of the tourism success stories of the decade so far, despite ongoing tensions and threats." The figure includes nearly 60,000 Americans who flew to the Middle East during each of the 2007 summer months, according to the U.S. Office of Travel and Tourism Industries.

It is a promising statistic for the region, which is striving to improve its international reputation. As he has learned from speaking with locals throughout the Middle East, Lord says, "Their fundamental goal . . . is to return Islam to the status it had in the Middle Ages when it was really a world leader of scholarship and aesthetics, when it was a beacon to the rest of the world. The people in the Gulf have told me that’s what they would like to ultimately see in their long-term vision."

This collective ambition has made Abu Dhabi one of several cities jockeying to be the Middle East’s cultural headquarters. Lord Cultural Resources helped conceive the Saudi Arabian National Museum, which opened in Riyadh in 1999, and is now working on a national monument in Bahrain. The firm also developed programming for the Museum of Islamic Arts in Doha, Qatar, the architectural swan song of I. M. Pei, set to open in November. It’s part of a broad cultural complex being planned by the Qatar Museums Authority, newly headed by former Rhode Island School of Design president Roger Mandle.

Abu Dhabi’s fellow emirate Sharjah entered the museum race as well, constructing so many cultural institutions in the 1990s—including police, archaeological and science museums, a breeding center for endangered animals and a planetarium—that the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) deemed it the 1998 Cultural Capital of the Arab World. Yet in less than a decade, the seams of these hastily fabricated structures started to show. An August 2007 Newsweek article titled "Money Can’t Buy Culture" reported that most of Sharjah’s museums were "severely understaffed" due to the absence of conservation and curatorial training programs throughout the U.A.E. Another issue is an overall lack of emphasis on art and music in school curricula. The article also noted that the museums’ "uneven standards" made them undesirable stops for touring exhibitions.

Sharjah’s situation raises questions about how Abu Dhabi will combat similar problems—and why the Guggenheim and the Louvre, keepers of some of the world’s most irreplaceable objects, would put both their collections and reputations at risk by loaning them to Saadiyat Island. Of course, for the Guggenheim this kind of partnership has become routine. The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation has established similar branches in Berlin, Bilbao, Venice and Las Vegas under the leadership of former director Thomas Krens, who stepped down from the post in February to focus on directing the construction of the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi.

The Louvre, however, is a less likely participant. The French were outspoken critics of the Guggenheim’s first moves toward global expansion. The Louvre’s similar plans in Abu Dhabi—as well as a proposed Shanghai outpost of the Georges Pompidou Center—were met with equal outrage. An op-ed titled "Museums Are Not for Sale" ran in Le Monde last December, signed by such French art world deities as Françoise Cachin, former director of the French Museum Association; Jean Clair, former director of the Picasso Museum; and art historian Roland Recht. Another 4,700 protesters signed an online petition against the "Desert Louvre," accusing the French government of selling out.

It was hardly a sale. Abu Dhabi paid France a total of $1.3 billion. The vast majority of that amount—$900 million—will go to the Louvre in exchange for the use of its name and services for 30 years; that includes $253 million for 15 years of temporary exhibitions and $247 million for a rotation of 200 to 300 loaned artworks over the next decade. (Louvre director Henri Loyrette has assured that the museum’s most beloved holdings, such as the Mona Lisa, will never be loaned to Abu Dhabi.) More than $32 million will be dedicated to renovating a wing of the Louvre’s Pavillon de Flore.

But the main benefits of the partnership are "primarily cultural," insists Marc Ladreit de Lacharrière, board chair of the Agence France-Muséums. "The exchanges between our two countries on this project will help the development of a better understanding between our societies."

"We are participating in the development of a key region, a region that is developing itself fast, a region that is preparing for the future, a region that is massively investing in the economy of intelligence and education," Bruno Maquart, CEO of the Agence France-Muséums, wrote in an e-mail. "We are helping them for 30 years, the time for a generation to rise. Arts are meant to be shared [all] over the world. We are talking about sharing expertise and enthusiasm on art!"

Critics of the deal have questioned whether social constraints in the Middle East will allow for such enthusiasm. More than 75 percent of the emirates’ total population of 4.4 million is Muslim, according to the U.S. State Department. As the country has diversified—U.A.E. citizens make up only 15 to 20 percent of the population—government restrictions on freedom of speech and of the press have diminished somewhat. Still, the emirate prevents citizens from viewing certain "offensive" materials. Emiratis attempting to visit websites such as Flickr or Twitter, for example, instead encounter a screen explaining that the page has been blocked "due to its content being inconsistent with the religious, cultural, political and moral values of the United Arab Emirates."

Predictably in a country where modesty is key—many Emirati women still don traditional abayat, garbs that cloak nearly their entire bodies in the scorching desert—nudity goes against the U.A.E.’s values. It’s another point of contention for those opposed to shipping French art there. "If they censor the contents of the exhibitions, they won’t show French culture anymore," Roland Recht asserted in a 2007 Washington Post article.

Both museum and Abu Dhabi officials insist that there will be no censorship of art. "There are no punches pulled one way or the other," says Lord. "Obviously if something is grievously offensive they would probably react to that as many people do in many parts of the world. Thus far, there are no limits put on anything."

Are the locals in line with this philosophy? To test the waters, TDIC presented a Picasso retrospective in Abu Dhabi in May, the first major exhibition of the artist’s work in the Middle East. Drawn exclusively from Paris’s Picasso Museum, the exhibition included 183 works—including nudes.

The reaction was "amazing," recalls Rita Aoun Abdo, art and cultural advisor for TDIC. "To be honest, we were concerned. We were really trying to discover what the reaction would be. The first day, we had around 1,750 visitors. That is really ‘wow’ for Abu Dhabi, especially during the summer period," when temperatures can rise up to 118 degrees Fahrenheit. "There was really a sort of will to be a part of this. It was amazing to go to the exhibition with people in national dress next to expatriates next to tourists."

"You can’t have a Picasso retrospective without nudity," she adds. "It was there. When it’s beauty, when it’s art, I don’t think that it’s a problem. We are not here to create a clash; we’re here to show art as it is and to make sure that the audience is prepared for it."

There were some concessions made for Arab attendees. For six hours during each Tuesday of the Picasso exhibition, which remained on view through Sept. 4, the galleries were open to women only. Abdo says that this is a regional custom to allow women to socialize—and that its inclusion in the retrospective’s schedule was meant as a peace offering to the community. "It was a message from our side to say nothing is contradictory," she explains. "It’s not that if you have Picasso in Abu Dhabi that you can’t at the same time respect the traditions of the country. No one obliged us. . . . It was a decision from our side to say, well, there is Picasso in Abu Dhabi, there may be nudity, but it is for the country as the country is, without any change, without any difference."

Beyond familiarizing the Arab world with Western art, the new museums on Saadiyat Island will launch Arab art to international heights, their developers emphasize. The five main focuses of Louvre Abu Dhabi’s programs will include one on Islamic art, says Lord, adding, "The whole intention is to open up that part of the world, to really make it a vital part of world culture."

The Louvre Abu Dhabi itself will not be a branch of the original museum but "a genuine Emirati museum, a museum that the local population shall make progressively its own," clarifies Bruno Maquart. For its part, the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi’s programming will feature "exhibitions developed specifically for and shown exclusively in Abu Dhabi and exhibitions of recognized masterpieces, as well as regional artists and trends," according to a 2007 press release announcing the museum’s operating framework.

It is all part of Saadiyat Island’s mission to establish Abu Dhabi as a capital of art and culture. These partnerships will take "the artistic identity that exists [in the Middle East] and combine it with the know-how and expertise of big names to create a new hub for the region, for Abu Dhabi, to connect the Arab world to the outside world," says Abdo. "The people of the Arab world will be part of a vibrant artistic life."

Yet every step of the process is pervaded with some kind of Western influence—and, of course, a main goal of the project is to attract Western tourism. This has caused some to wonder whether Arab culture is benefiting from the partnership or being left in its dust. Roger Mandle has distinguished his plans for Qatar’s museum scene from Abu Dhabi’s. "Frankly, we don’t want to become another franchise," he stated in an interview with Metropolis Magazine. "We want to be seen as developing a kind of Arab cultural renaissance. It will also be defined by Qatar’s place in its own history and within the Islamic and Arab cultures. This is not going to be people importing culture from elsewhere."

During a recent trip to the U.S. from Doha, where he has been living since July, Mandle reported that the Qatar Museums Authority is closely observing its neighbors’ efforts. "I would say that Qatar is about five years behind Dubai or the other emirates in the development of its cultural infrastructure or even its sort of cityscape, and I think that’s a plus," he explained. "It gives us a chance to stand back and see what has been done and do it our own way."

Qatar’s strategy will focus less on attracting tourism and more on the Arab people themselves. "Tourism is always desirable, but . . . the main purpose is really to bring our own people, as diverse as they’ve now become, much more in tune with what the cultural assets are of their country and really define them in a way that talks about the culture of the Arab world and of Qatar in particular."

Mandle also wants to quickly hand back the reins of Doha’s forthcoming museum complex—which, besides the Museum of Islamic Art, will include an "evolving" number of institutions—to the locals. "It was made quite clear to me that one of my roles was to train Qatar leadership," he says. "Basically my role is to work myself out of a job over the next five to seven years." To accomplish this, Mandle has been charged with establishing a museum studies program in Qatar that will link its museums with others around the world for internship and professional development opportunities.

In fact, several Middle Eastern cities—including Abu Dhabi—are partnering with Western universities to establish programs, generally with heavy liberal arts leanings, to foster a love for the arts and to generate a self-sufficient supply of local museum professionals. The Paris-Sorbonne University opened its first satellite campus in Abu Dhabi in 2006. New York University will follow suit in 2012, opening a campus, in which former Metropolitan Museum of Art director Philippe de Montebello will have an advisory role, in Saadiyat Island’s cultural district. Lord says his firm is planning a program in Bahrain to "recruit nationals and, through training, get them to a point where they can begin to assume responsibility in these institutions."

More than tourism dollars, it is these educational opportunities that will define the worth of Saadiyat Island, Abdo contends. "Success will be when every person from the Arab world will know they can have universities to study in in their own countries, that they can have training programs, that they can make sure that their kids are part of an international level of life," she says. "It’s beyond opening a museum. It’s more than a concept; it’s a mission. It is what will be the future of this region."