Geopolitics and Innovation at Louvre Abu Dhabi: In Conversation with Manuel Rabaté and Dr Souraya Noujaim
- Alexander (Sami) Kardos-Nyheim
- Jun 22, 2021
- 8 min read
Updated: Mar 30
Manuel Rabaté is Director of Louvre Abu Dhabi. He has taught Arts & Cultural Management at Paris-Dauphine University and Paris-Sorbonne University Abu Dhabi. He is a Knight of France’s National Order of Merit.
Dr Souraya Noujaim is Scientific, Curatorial & Collections Management Director of Louvre Abu Dhabi. She has studied the British Museum’s Arabic weights and measures, and has been Islamic Art History Chair at the École du Louvre.
Louvre Abu Dhabi sits at a tense but enriching cultural crossroads. The museum brings the name of France’s most treasured cultural institution to the desert of the United Arab Emirates. The museum is innovative but its geopolitical context is difficult: a background of continuous government negotiations, and the cultural friction between East and West. The institution’s Director, Manuel Rabaté, and Curatorial Director, Dr Souraya Noujaim, discussed their creative vision and difficulties with honesty.
Manuel Rabaté, Director
CJLPA: Louvre Abu Dhabi arose in 2017 out of a 2007 agreement between France and the UAE. What was the intention behind the agreement?
Manuel Rabaté: This agreement was extraordinarily visionary. You cannot read it in isolation. It was part of a master plan to make Abu Dhabi an important international centre of knowledge, education, sustainability, and tourism. It was made in tandem with other agreements that led to Sorbonne Abu Dhabu, Berkley Abu Dhabi, New York University Abu Dhabi, Zayed University and National Museum, and Guggenheim Abu Dhabi. Tourism was undoubtedly an important motive. The government of Abu Dhabi was keen to ensure diversification of economic assets, and found that strong investment in its educational and cultural fibre was an excellent way of achieving this. The UAE federation dates only to 1971, but the place has a rich, much older heritage. The UAE wants to preserve this and create a cultural legacy. There is much more there than just the sun.
The community is built on other institutions and ideals too. Many of the buildings in which Abu Dhabi’s cultural institutions sit have been designed by Western architects, and many institutions bear Western names. But they are not necessarily extensions of Western points of view and ways of doing things. A key part of the vision behind Louvre Abu Dhabi, as well as the wider cultural objectives of the Abu Dhabi government, was to promote a universal story. Much like the British Museum in London and the Louvre in Paris are not museums of British art or French art, Louvre Abu Dhabi is place where you invite the world to come and see how you perceive human interconnectedness. We want to tell the story of the world through artworks and objects of beauty, at the same time raising points about Arab identity and the interaction of East and West. This may sound like a cliché, but I mean it truly.
