Louvre Abu Dhabi marks fifth anniversary with exhibition celebrating up to date artwork from the Gulf area

The Louvre Abu Dhabi and Swiss watchmaking model Richard Mille have unveiled the second version of the Louvre Abu Dhabi ‘Artwork Right here’ exhibition, a multifaceted celebration of up to date artwork from throughout the UAE and wider GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) area. 

The Louvre Abu Dhabi was inaugurated in 2017, following an settlement with the Louvre Museum in Paris made a decade earlier than. It was an instantaneous worldwide sensation, not least due to its gleaming white geometric buildings enveloped by a colossal dome formation comprised of intersecting aluminium lattices, envisioned by Pritzker prize-winning French architect Jean Nouvel. The waterfront museum is sited on the burgeoning arts hub of Saadiyat Island the place the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi and Zayed Nationwide Museum are additionally below development. 

The museum was born of a imaginative and prescient to create a strong cultural change between the worldwide and native artwork ecosystems by way of its rotating everlasting assortment and short-term historic and up to date exhibitions. ‘This museum is the primary common museum of the Arab world,’ Manuel Rabaté, director of Louvre Abu Dhabi, explains to Wallpaper*. ‘There are lots of methods to make use of this lovely museum. As a constructing, as a gathering place, as a meditation place, for meals, [and] sport. It’s a spot that the group can have interaction with.’

On show throughout the Louvre Abu Dhabi’s Discussion board house till 19 February 2023, ‘Artwork Right here 2022’ options work by ten artists who’ve been shortlisted for the Richard Mille Artwork Prize 2023. Whereas the primary version of the prize was open to UAE-based artists, the second version is a multidisciplinary celebration of voices from your complete GCC area. 

The present options artists Afra Al Dhaheri, Ayman Zedani, Dana Awartani, Elizabeth Dorazio, Manal Al Dowayan, Rand Abdul Jabbar, Simrin Mehra Agarwal, Shaikha Al Mazrou, Vikram Divecha and Zeinab AlHashemi, whose work ranges from sound set up to ceramics, textiles and uncooked pure supplies. 

‘This museum is a home of the previous, of reminiscence and preserving treasures, however it ought to [also] be a spot for the longer term and a stage for artists,’ explains Souraya Noujaim, director of scientific, curatorial and collections administration at Louvre Abu Dhabi. ‘We’re in an iconic constructing housing actually icons of historical past and I wished to playfully invite the artists – “What do you consider all that?” – and the outcomes are actually marvellous as a result of it isn’t what you anticipate.’

Artists had been shortlisted by a five-member jury fashioned of HH Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan bin Khalifa Al Nahyan, chairman of UAE Limitless, artwork collector, and patron; Morad Montazami, a curator, artwork historian and writer; Hala Wardé, founding architect of HW Structure, long-term companion of Jean Nouvel and the lead of the Louvre Abu Dhabi mission; Souraya Noujaim, director of scientific, curatorial and collections administration at Louvre Abu Dhabi; and Reem Fadda, director of the cultural basis and curator of Louvre Abu Dhabi ‘Artwork Right here 2022’. The prize winner will likely be introduced in early 2023 and obtain an award of USD60,000. 

Exhibiting work responding to the theme ‘Icon and Iconic’, the present’s artists study the historic gravity and up to date ubiquity of the notion of ‘icon’, and the way it now resonates inside arts and tradition. ‘What I discovered fascinating is that every one of those artists had been asking what that means, [and] deconstructing that that means fully,’ Fadda continues. ‘We’d perceive iconic as “floor, picture, or simply consumed”; what you have got right here is one thing much more embodied and earthen, rather more existential.’

‘We had been all looking for excellence, that’s the core of it,’ says Fadda. ‘The prize is catered for this area, and you’re feeling it. You’re feeling a stage of homogeneity when it comes to the considerations which can be abounding.’

In addition to the Louvre Abu Dhabi ‘Artwork Right here 2022’ exhibition, a variety of site-specific up to date interventions by main worldwide artists reinforce the museum’s dedication to the current. Jenny Holzer has engraved three partitions with historic texts, whereas Giuseppe Penone put in 4 items within the light-dappled courtyard that have interaction with the museum structure and its collections. For the museum’s fifth anniversary, Michelangelo Pistoletto was invited to exhibit a collection of ‘mirror work’ impressed by the Louvre in Paris, displayed all through the Abu Dhabi museum’s assortment. 

‘There are very energetic artwork scenes blossoming within the UAE. We have now restricted house that we will dedicate to questioning the up to date scene, in order that’s why we created [the prize with Richard Mille],’ Rabaté concludes, explaining that an essential a part of the Louvre Abu Dhabi’s customer demographic is creators and artists. ‘It’s already recognition to be contained in the Louvre Abu Dhabi. We would like it to be a sustainable dialogue with the group. Native, world, all of it’s right here. It’s a full package deal of what we do to have a good time the vitality and confidence of the establishment.’

Louvre Abu Dhabi ‘Artwork Right here 2022’ falls throughout the UAE’s cultural season that includes the Abu Dhabi Artwork honest, new exhibitions on the NYU Abu Dhabi Artwork Gallery, Dubai Design Week, and Artwork Dubai. 

Artworks by the ten Richard Mille Artwork Prize shortlisted artists are on present within the ‘Artwork Right here 2022’ exhibition till 19 February 2023. louvreabudhabi.ae (opens in new tab); richardmille.com (opens in new tab)