LOATHE IT: Louvre Abu Dhabi
You may wonder if I’m not jumping the gun. I mean, it’s costing a fortune, it’s being designed by Jean Nouvel and it’s a Louvre. But there, you see, is my problem. There is only one Louvre. And it isn’t – with the greatest respect - in Abu Dhabi.
I appreciate that the world’s latest contender for global hub is trying to associate itself with culture, which I always applaud. I’ll even agree that plagiarism worked just fine for Shakespeare. Not to mention Damien Hirst. But much like Guggenheim in Bilbao, if you’re going to spend hundreds of millions building a national gallery, it’s probably more sensible to spend it building one that won’t forever be perceived as the annexe of another, more famous gallery. This neatly brings us to my next entry.
LOVE IT: Zayed National Museum
Sharing Saadiyat Island with the Louvre (and with the Abu Dhabi Guggenheim, but you know where I stand on that) this museum gets my vote for being one of the region’s best. True, it isn’t built yet either and it’s not entirely certain what it will exhibit, though it is dedicated to the life of his highness, the late Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan and in particular, his love of falconry – which is why Sir Norman (yes, Foster) has designed a building constructed out of 125 metre-tall steel feathers - but the Zayed National Museum gets my vote for being both original and culturally-relevant.
LOVE IT: Smogallery
Hang on, I hear you say. These are museums, wasn’t this piece supposed to be about galleries? You’re right. So here’s my favourite gallery in the region. Located in a part of Beirut best known (until the Sfeir-Semler gallery began to change that reputation, anyway) for its slaughterhouse, Smogallery has been part of the area’s transformation. With 4-metre high ceilings, it is full of light and organised around the democratic principle that informed its name. “Smo is a sound” owner Gregory Gatserelia explained at the opening party, “that is open to interpretation, a blank space.”
LOVE IT: Traffic
Speaking of blank spaces – or more accurately, tabula rasa – there’s Traffic, the Dubai-based gallery run by art-repreneur Rami Farook. It’s another favourite, mostly for the purpose-commissioned installation pieces Farook and his team of young creatives put together, though it’s mission statement could do with a nip and a tuck. ‘Created in 2007 as a forum for social studies, research and development,” it states, “Traffic intends to create, exhibit and exchange.’ Intends, eh? Who says art can’t be earnest?
LOVE IT: Tajalliyat
On a more serious note, one of the most alluring galleries I have visited is Syria’s Tajalliyat. With smooth wooden floors and delicate lighting, the atmosphere is extraordinary, innovative and intuitive all at once. The gallery positively glows—and that’s even before you see their collection, which is a smorgasbord of Syria at its best.
So there you have it, the best and the worst the region has to offer. At least as I see it. For art, like beauty, is ultimately in the eye of the beholder and, as has been said elsewhere, one (wo)man’s trash, is another’s treasure, so take not my words to heart (I love you really, Abu Dhabi) and to paraphrase Mr. Smogallery, the raison d’être of any gallery worth its salt is that it “shows anything that people want to articulate”. After all, isn’t that ultimately what art is really all about?
