Abu Dhabi to get its own Louvre
In November, the universal museum "Louvre Abu Dhabi", the brainchild of the intergovernmental project of the United Arab Emirates and France, will open on the Emirati island of Saadiyat, located seven minutes drive from the center of Abu Dhabi.
The new exposition center promises to become a place of pilgrimage for fans of architecture and art, says The Telegraph.
According to the director of the museum Manuel Rabaté, the Abu Dhabi Louvre will turn not only into another tourist magnet, but will also allow the Emirates to assert itself in the arena of world culture. Along with the permanent state collection, which gradually replenishes and includes about 620 works, the museum will show the masterpieces of Picasso, Leonardo da Vinci, Gauguin, Manet, Magritte, Bellini, Mondrian, Jacques-Louis David, Rodin, Van Gogh.
Some of the exhibits will be delivered from 17 national collections in France, major museums in Paris, Chambord Chateau in the Loire, the Washington National Gallery of Art and the Kimbell Art Museum, USA.
The oldest exhibit of the museum belongs to the Paleolithic era (about 2.5 million years ago); and the modern art direction will feature works by American conceptual artist Jenny Holzer and Italian sculptor, artist Giuseppe Penone.
The amazing statuette of a Bactrian princess from Central Asia (3000-2000 BCE) will join her antiquarian "contemporaries" from Ancient Egypt, Babylon and China. Separate pavilions will tell about how gold was mined and processed, and even became a religious cult in different epochs.
Abu Dhabi Louvre is aimed at narrating visitors about the history of the development of human civilization in a new context, through painting and visual arts. To do this, exhibit works will not be placed according to where they come from, but grouped chronologically recreating the journey in time.
55 low buildings of the museum complex, stylized as the architecture of ancient Arab cities, embraces 23 galleries, temporary exhibition space, children's museum, conference hall for 200 seats, restaurants, cafes and shops. The complex will be crowned by a giant white dome 180 meters in diameter, 36 meters high, consisting of 7850 layered geometric figures resembling the shape of a star. According to the idea of the chief architect Jean Nouvel, the sunlight, getting into these "star like" slots, will create a "rain of light" effect, and after dark the entire huge structure will shine like a Moroccan filigree lantern.
