In recent years, institutions worldwide have begun to reexamine their permanent collections and curatorial displays, reconsidering how these frame and narrate art history and the evolution of civilization. No museum operates as a truly neutral entity—each institution shapes how we perceive art history and society’s larger cultural dynamics. Confronting longstanding questions of representation, inclusivity and power embedded in traditional narratives, museums are adopting new approaches to collecting, operations and promotion that are more fluid and critically engaged. Once presented through static and crystallized frameworks, art and artifacts on display may be rotated in or out of exhibitions, recontextualized via placard texts or even returned to their country of origin in the service of more pluralistic, multilayered and equitable presentations of global art and cultural histories.
The museographic strategy adopted by the Louvre Abu Dhabi, which opened in 2017 in the U.A.E., is particularly revealing in how it aligns with the country’s broader political agenda, both in terms of cultural diplomacy and domestic and international policy. Indeed, the museum is staging what may be an unprecedented museographic proposition: a synchronically intercultural narrative of civilization’s development, tracing how artistic, spiritual and scientific breakthroughs unfolded in parallel across disparate regions of the world.
French architect Jean Nouvel’s tour de force rises with deliberate spectacle along the waterfront of the emerging cultural district on Saadiyat Island, soon to host a lineup of equally spectacular buildings: the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, the Zayed National Museum, the Natural History Museum—all currently under construction—and teamLab Phenomena Abu Dhabi, the immersive digital museum by the Japanese collective teamLab, which opened just last week. It sits less than a ten-minute drive from some of the most beautiful and luxurious resorts recently built along the island’s white-sand beaches and clear-
Emerging from the turquoise waters like a mirage with luminous white volumes, Nouvel reimagined the museum not as a singular monument but as a porous city of knowledge—open, fluid and in dialogue with its surroundings. Inspired by traditional Arab medinas and low-lying desert settlements, the building appears to hover above the waterline, establishing a visual and conceptual continuity with Arabic heritage and aesthetic traditions. Its crowning architectural gesture—a 180-meter-wide dome composed of eight interlocking layers of steel and aluminum latticework—casts a mesmerizing “rain of light,” echoing the dappled sunlight of an oasis palm grove while invoking the transcendental role of geometric abstraction in Islamic art as a non-figurative pathway to the divine.
While the Louvre in Paris—like the British Museum or the Metropolitan Museum of Art—continues isolating and compartmentalizing cultures into distinct zones, one encounters a strikingly different logic here. Gold funerary masks from Peru (100 BCE-700 BCE), the Philippines (900-1200) and Lebanon (600-800 BCE) are in a shared vitrine; representations of motherhood from the Ivory Coast, Egypt and France sit side by side; and funerary objects from Oceania, China and France appear in direct dialogue.
Other vitrines trace the migration of decorative and symbolic motifs across continents, shaped by trade, imitation and adaptation into the visual vocabularies of receiving cultures. Patterns from Chinese blue-and-white porcelain were reimagined in Iznik (the epicenter of ceramic production in the Ottoman Empire), fused with floral motifs inspired by Istanbul’s gardens. In Venice, these same designs were reinterpreted through Italian Mannerism’s lens, absorbing the local tradition’s colors and ornamental language.
As visitors move through the exhibition—and along the arc of civilization—a resonant curatorial juxtaposition appears: a medieval statue of the Virgin Mary with child stands in alignment with turquoise tiles bearing Quranic verses and an ancient Buddha sculpture. Positioned on a single axis, these objects reveal how, nearly 2,000 years ago, the rise of universal religions unfolded almost simultaneously across Europe, Asia and Africa. “By addressing their message to all humanity without distinction, Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam transcended local cultural characteristics and deeply transformed ancient societies,” reads the wall text, underscoring how the spread of belief systems, far from being solely defined by conflict, also created spaces of mutual influence and shared transformation.
The climax of these cross-cultural curatorial pairings arguably arrives near the end of the exhibition. In the contemporary section, a dialogue unfolds between a futuristic sculpture by Marcel Duchamp, a 19th-century ceremonial dance paddle from the Rapa Nui culture of Chile and a curvilinear headdress shaped like a snake from the Nalu or Baga culture in Guinea (dated between 1800 and 1940). Together, they reveal the extent to which Modernism owes its visual language to non-Western cultures, particularly in its synthetic treatment of the human form, reduced to pure line and formal essence, as seen in ritualistic and totemic artifacts.
In the final room, Cy Twombly’s pseudo-script and Willem de Kooning’s gestural abstraction channel the same primal need to leave a mark that pulses through time in the imaginative figures carved into rock faces by Arabian shepherds over 4,000 years ago—presented here in direct visual dialogue. As this across-time exchange between picture and script unfolds, a vessel painted by Keith Haring, covered in hieroglyphic-like humanoid figures, mirrors that same impulse: a drive to invent a visual language of pictograms and symbols that predate formal writing systems, springing instead from raw expression and emotional charge.
Although the curatorial parallels may at times stretch the viewer’s suspension of disbelief, the underlying message resonates clearly: human development follows a shared trajectory, with civilizations across geographies arriving at similar breakthroughs in tandem—each shaped, expanded and deepened by the ongoing flow of cross-cultural exchange.
As with MASP in São Paulo, the Louvre Abu Dhabi likewise embraces transparency in its display strategies, allowing for a layered interplay of artifacts, cultural narratives and aesthetic vocabularies that enables synchronic dialogues across time and geography. Here, objects are not isolated but visually and conceptually interwoven, forming revealing parallels and unexpected juxtapositions that complicate linear readings of art history.
Completing this dialogue across time and space is a permanent installation by Jenny Holzer, which engages enduring themes of civilization, historical memory and cross-cultural exchange through three texts carved into marble panels on the external walls of the museum’s galleries. Written in Sumerian-Akkadian, Arabic and French, these inscriptions present excerpts from a Mesopotamian Creation Myth tablet excavated from the ancient city of Assur in present-day Iraq, the 1588 annotated edition of Michel de Montaigne’s Essais and a passage from Ibn Khaldun’s 14th-century Muqaddimah, held in the Atif Efendi Library in Istanbul—a foundational text for modern disciplines such as economics, sociology, ethnography and the philosophy of history. Reflecting the museum’s multicultural origins and universalist approach to culture and creativity, Holzer’s intervention brings these texts—on the origins of thought, the act of writing and the transmission of knowledge—into a powerful spatial conversation with the building’s architecture. In doing so, she reactivates historical consciousness, inviting viewers to consider the universal rhythm of societal development shaped by the shared existential questions that have echoed across human civilizations for millennia.
This museographic and historical approach—one that considers the global history of humanity as an interconnected whole—lays bare the extent to which traditional institutions remain shaped not only by Western-centric narratives but also by ethnographic frameworks that feel increasingly outdated in today’s multicultural and globally entangled society. What stands out at the Louvre Abu Dhabi is that it does not merely sidestep a Western or Eurocentric perspective; it adopts a global, multicultural and all-encompassing vision that actively fosters intercultural dialogue. It emphasizes the trans-geographical connections forged through centuries of trade, exchange, migration and mutual influence—tracing these entanglements back to the earliest moments of human civilization.
The Louvre Abu Dhabi’s museography is deliberately conceived as post-national, transhistorical and profoundly humanist, serving as a symbolic statement of the U.A.E.’s ambition to position itself as a bridge between civilizations and a catalyst for cross-cultural understanding. The museum points out that the “Abu Dhabi Collection has evolved over many years, contributing to the universal dialogue in the art world. It underscores the Emirate’s commitment to building a unique collection that disseminates cross-cultural and universal narratives. Spanning prehistory to the present, the collection reinforces Abu Dhabi’s status as a world-leading cultural centre dedicated to creating and sharing new research and knowledge.”
When museography aligns with a political agenda
It is particularly relevant to consider this museographic and curatorial approach in light of the geopolitical role the U.A.E. (as well as other Gulf states such as Saudi Arabia and, more recently, Qatar) seek to play within today’s shifting global dynamics. These nations have increasingly positioned themselves as neutral actors amid evolving international alliances, frequently serving as diplomatic hubs for high-stakes negotiations and conferences addressing urgent global challenges. At the same time, as relatively young states aiming to attract talent and capital, they have adopted comparatively open migration policies. The UAE, in particular, has become a refuge for individuals fleeing political unrest, war or authoritarian regimes in neighboring countries, as well as for nationals from countries like Russia, affected by international sanctions.
In parallel, both the UAE and Saudi Arabia have made significant investments in the cultural sector to shape domestic identity and diversify their oil-dependent economies and wield cultural production as a strategic instrument of diplomacy and soft power on the global stage.
In February, the United Arab Emirates and Italy significantly deepened their bilateral ties through a landmark agreement involving a $40 billion Emirati investment in Italy. The initiative spans more than forty agreements across sectors and establishes a comprehensive strategic partnership that prominently includes cultural collaboration—particularly in heritage preservation, tourism and artistic exchange.
In 2024, the UAE signed a similar memorandum of understanding with South Korea—a country widely recognized for its dynamic and effective cultural policies—once again emphasizing the strategic role of cultural diplomacy. Building on this framework, last September the Abu Dhabi Music & Arts Foundation (ADMAF) and the Korean Foundation for International Cultural Exchange (KOFICE) signed an additional MOU, reinforcing their shared commitment to sustained cultural collaboration.
One of the first outcomes of this partnership is “Layered Medium: We Are in Open Circuits,” a new exhibition that opened last week at Manarat Al Saadiyat in Abu Dhabi’s cultural district. Co-curated by Kyung-hwan Yeo and Maya El Khalil, the exhibition traces the evolution of Korea’s avant-garde art scene from the 1960s to the present through the work of 28 pioneering artists drawn from the Seoul Museum of Art’s collection. Crucially, and in contrast to many recent international showcases of Korean art, particularly in the U.S., this initiative moves beyond soft-power branding to establish a genuinely reciprocal platform for intercultural dialogue. Centered on the concept of “medium” and the entanglement of body, society and technology, the show opens a deeper conversation between the UAE and Korea, drawing meaningful parallels between their respective art scenes where artists have similarly responded to the pressures of accelerated urbanization and compressed modernity. A follow-up exhibition of U.A.E. artists from the 1990s to today will open at the Seoul Museum of Art, accompanied by a dual-publication featuring essays by writers and critics from both countries reflecting on one another’s artistic landscapes.
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Similar MOUs centered on shared cultural priorities have been signed by the UAE with several other nations in recent years, including Greece (2020), the U.K. (2021) and Japan (2024). Meanwhile, signaling its broader cultural investment strategy, Abu Dhabi’s sovereign wealth fund ADQ acquired a minority stake in Sotheby’s, announcing a $1 billion investment last August.
At the same time, top international universities such as NYU and Berklee have expanded their presence in the U.A.E., strengthening institutional ties through the establishment of dedicated campuses. Also located in the Manarat Al Saadiyat district, Berklee College of Music opened in 2020 as a music and performing arts institution offering educational programs and live performances affiliated with the American university. NYU Abu Dhabi (NYUAD), launched in 2010 in partnership with the Abu Dhabi government via the Executive Affairs Authority, has since evolved into a fully accredited, degree-granting global campus of New York University—academically and administratively integrated with NYU New York and NYU Shanghai.
Gulf states advance with cultural power while the U.S. focuses elsewhere
As previously reported, neighboring Saudi Arabia has been particularly active in leveraging cultural diplomacy as a central instrument of soft power and international collaboration. The latest development came just weeks ago, when the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art (NMAA) signed an expanded partnership agreement with Saudi Arabia’s Royal Commission for AlUla—formalizing what had been a quietly growing collaboration focused on cultural heritage preservation and research. The agreement establishes joint initiatives in archaeological research, exhibition loans and curatorial exchange, with the dual aim of promoting AlUla as a global cultural destination and advancing scholarly understanding of the region’s heritage. As part of Saudi Arabia’s broader Vision 2030 strategy for economic diversification, the partnership adds to a growing roster of international collaborations—including recent agreements with the Centre Pompidou (supported by a €50 million donation toward the institution’s €262 million renovation), the Desert X biennial and UNESCO.
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