Abu Dhabi will soon be home to art from the Louvre in Paris. Apparently the French are furious about the 500-million-Euro-deal; they thought France was “selling its soul” (that cheap?).On the other hand, I wonder whether the nude, erotic or christian art will be taken well by the muslim conservatives. The Louvre (Paris) has an entire section on Islamic Art; but apart from that doesn’t about every piece seem like it will cause a stir in Abu Dhabi?
10 comments:
read the news piece here in the newspaper..and as u the reporter was incredulous abt the dichotomy of the art in Paris (read West) and Abu Dhabi.
lol @ "that cheap" bit!!! :)
Just imagine a 'niqaab'-ed Venus de Milo in an abaya. Priceless, wot?
Moi,hey,
Didnt get the link to the news article.
Prometheus,
Not a bad idea! :)
I'v heard both positive and negative about this in the local circles, I'm very much for it, I think most people will take it well. And i dont think it should creat any stir as there have been events and exibitions with a lot that is frowened upong in this country. People are catching on it seems.
The deal is not that cheap. There has been a lot of cozying up to the French govt. with promises to buy a lot of aircrafts and armaments. So the deal is actually worth more than $1.3 billion. Not sure how the Middle East news covered it, but this is how NY Times covered it.
OG,
I think so too, a majority of the people will take it as an opportunity to viewe European art.
Clickable,
haha! Thats such a typical NY-times-portrayal of middle eastern events :) Coukd be true though, never know!
Interesting indeed! Well there is certainly a lot of art in there that won't be seen favorably by conservative eyes.
Then again they might just be shipping certain..."appropriate" pieces. Either way it will be great for AD!
SS,
I'm so looking forward to seeing the Louvre here myself!
You know, when I heard that the Louvre was going to be franchising its name to an art museum in AbuDhabi I wondered the same thing and apparently so are some of the comedians on the late night shows here in North America. Yesterday, the Bill Maher show had a funny segment on how some of the paintings might be changed for Gulf viewing and they had the Monalisa in a burqa and Vincent Van Gogh with a iPod and silly stuff like that...
So Prometheus was not the only one with that idea :))
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