Birth of a Museum
2 May–28 July 2014
Musée du Louvre
Napoléon Hall
75058 Paris
France
www.louvreabudhabi.ae
www.louvre.fr
In the first major display of its collection outside Abu Dhabi, more than one hundred and sixty of the finest masterpieces from Louvre Abu Dhabi’s permanent collection will be showcased in the Musée du Louvre, Paris at the Napoléon Hall from 2 May until 28 July.
The exhibition titled Birth of a Museum will provide visitors to Musée du Louvre, Paris with a preview of the museum that is set to open late next year in the Saadiyat Cultural District, also the home to the Zayed National Museum and Guggenheim Abu Dhabi. Situated in the Cultural District in Abu Dhabi, Louvre Abu Dhabi is a universal museum designed to house aesthetic expressions of different civilisations and cultures from the most ancient to the most contemporary.
Visitors will be able to explore artworks from ancient times including one of the finest examples of a standing Bactrian Princess from the end of the 3rd millennium BCE, a Middle-Eastern gold bracelet with a lion’s head approximately 3,000 years old and a painting by Oman Hemdy Bey from 1878 titled A Young Emir Studying and a painting by Paul Gauguin, Children Wrestling, 1888. Extending into more modern, contemporary artworks include a Piet Mondrian that was previously part of the former Yves Saint-Laurent and Pierre Bergé Collection, a painting by Alexander Calder and a series of nine canvases by contemporary artist Cy Twombly.
The exhibition curators are Vincent Pomarède, Director of Mediation and Cultural Programming/Director of the Department of Paintings at the Musée du Louvre, Paris Laurence des Cars, Director of the Musée de l’Orangerie and Khalid Abdulkhaliq Abdulla, Assistant Curator for Birth of a Museum exhibition, Abu Dhabi Tourism & Culture Authority.
Progress of Louvre Abu Dhabi continues; the collection is often showcased to the UAE audience through a number of public programmes (including exhibitions, performances and panels of scholars), the Abu Dhabi team is expanding in anticipation of the opening of the museum and the training of UAE Nationals is an ongoing priority. A one-to-one mockup of one of the museums’ galleries has been completed and the iconic dome continues to be assembled and placed into position on the construction site. With a built-up area of 64,000 square metres, Louvre Abu Dhabi is conceived as a complex of pavilions, plazas, alleyways and canals, evoking the image of a city floating on the sea. Hovering over the complex will be a vast, shallow dome—some 180 metres in diameter—perforated with interlaced patterns so that a magical, diffused light reminiscent of the shadows of palm trees will filter through.
For further details, contact Emma Cantwell:
T +971 2 6981847 / ecantwell [at] tcaabudhabi.ae
