Big G in the UAE

Everyone moaning about the lack of culture in the region will pretty much have to sober up and stay quiet once the UAE’s newest, brightest and artiest destination comes up — the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi (GAD) is set to be up and welcoming visitors within five years, complete with big-name architect, Frank Gehry.

The new museum is part of a bid to take one of art’s most prominent names worldwide, and new properties currently taking shape are in Singapore and Guadalajara. Current Guggenheims welcome art lovers in New York, Las Vegas, Bilbao, Berlin and Venice.
At 30,000 square metres, the Abu Dhabi museum will be the only Guggenheim museum in the region and will be larger than any existing Guggenheim worldwide. It will be owned by the Abu Dhabi Tourism Development & Investment Company (TDIC) and managed by the Guggenheim Foundation.
GAD will form its own major collection of contemporary art and will also exhibit masterworks from the Guggenheim Foundation’s global collections. It will host both a fixed exhibition as well as themed events that exhibit works of different artists from all over the world, says Thomas Krens, director of the Guggenheim Foundation.
All works displayed will be respectful to the national and Islamic culture and heritage of Abu Dhabi, according to a statement put out by the TDIC.
“Abu Dhabi has an overriding ambition to be a cultural destination,” says Sheikh Sultan Bin Tahnoon Al Nahyan, chairman of the Abu Dhabi Tourism Authority (ADTA) and TDIC. “The Guggenheim Abu Dhabi will be located completely within the Saadiyat island and will reflect the local and cultural aspects of the city. We believe this will bridge the gap between the region and the rest of the world. We expect to see at least three million visitors by 2015.”
GAD is to be built in the Cultural District of Saadiyat Island — a natural island lying 500m offshore the UAE capital which is being transformed into an international tourism destination. The Cultural District will also be home to a museum to the UAE’s founding president Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, national museum, classical art museum, maritime museum, performing arts centre and an expansive arts centre park. Negotiations are on with other international institutions such as the Louvre in Paris.
Krens says the Guggenheim implicitly regards all contemporary cultures and their traditions as “potential partners in the field of aesthetic discourse — we are both respectful of difference and excited by it. We also believe that the Middle East is one of the world’s most important emerging regions in terms of contemporary culture.”
So what will GAD look like? Gehry’s Bilbao effort is a work of art made of titanium, but he says the use of that sort of material will not be possible in Abu Dhabi due to region-specific weather conditions.
The new Guggenheim, then, is likely to look very different from Gehry’s signature works.
“Censorship will be an issue to a certain extent. It is important that we respect the sensitivity of local traditions,” says Krens.
Krens reportedly put the estimates at $600 to $700 a square foot, for a total in the region of $200 million.

· Keith J Fernandez & Shalu Chandran