The Louvre Abu Dhabi: the best – and worst – of globalisation

The headlines announcing the opening of the dome-shaped Louvre Abu Dhabi are a cornucopia of superlatives. ‘Spectacular palace of culture shimmers in the desert’ and ‘a cultural cornerstone where East meets West’ were two of the most laudatory. ‘East meets West’ is the frequently used cliché. However the new museum, which cost around $1 billion to construct over ten years and is a centrepiece of Abu Dhabi’s attempt to position itself as a cultural hub in the Middle East, is not an example of East meeting West, it is symbol of the post-EastWest era we live in.

French President Emmanuel Macron flew in for the grand opening of the 55-room art collection on 8 November. The agreement to export the Louvre brand to the Gulf was signed in 2007 between the UAE and France and the museum’s website boasts that it is ‘the first universal museum in the Arab world’. It palls in comparison to the original, with 620 pieces of art on display compared to an estimated 35,000 in Paris.