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Napoleon crossing the Alps by J.L. David

At the end of the first decade of the 21st century, large museum institutions are expanding more and more, not only by enlarging their headquarters but also by opening new branches at home and abroad. The first museum to test this model of development was the Guggenheim Museum which, in addition to the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice, has opened in Berlin, and it is building, according to a project by Frank Gehry, the Abu Dhabi Guggenheim Museum.
The Tate Modern Museum in London has a satellite, for example, in Liverpool (Tate Liverpool Museum) while the Beaubourg Museum in Paris has inaugurated one in Mets.(1)

But the “most striking” cultural/commercial deal is the one closed by the Louvre Museum in Paris.

In 2007, the French Government and the Federal State of the United Arab Emirates signed an agreement to launch Abu Dhabi as a center of art and culture. The agreement provides for the thirty-year sale of the “Louvre brand”, along with the long-term loan of works of art from the famous Parisian museum and from twelve other French museums, in exchange for generous financial support.

The goal is to bring 8.5 million tourists annually to Abu Dhabi by 2020.
To distinguish itself from the nearby Dubai, which has already become one of the great capitals of world tourism, focusing on entertainment as well as luxury, and from Doha, which has focused on sport (World Cup 2022), Abu Dhabi has chosen the cultural path. The intention is to create a real museum district in Abu Dhabi, such as those in Berlin or Washington, Amsterdam or Vienna, between sea and sand.

Only the grant of the “Louvre” brand for the duration of 30 years seems to be worth 400 million Euros, while another 575 million Euros will be granted in exchange for loans.
The Louvre Museum in Abu Dhabi is a design by Jean Nouvel: a city-museum, an elegant and Pharaonic project. It is the first museum of its kind in the Arab world, a universal exhibition, which focuses on human stories shared through civilizations and cultures.
According to Mohamed Khalifa Al Mubarak, president of The Abu Dhabi Tourism & Culture Authority and Tourism Development & Investment Company, the Louvre Museum in Abu Dhabi embodies the belief of the founders of the United Arab Emirates: that nations grow with diversity and acceptance which highlights how the world has always been interconnected.

The highest representatives of French culture have confirmed, in addition to the complete absence of vetoes regarding representations of the deities of every religion and provenance, that the Louvre Museum in Abu Dhabi will be exempt from any prohibition of representation of the nude, in painting or sculpture, sacred or not.
They will display important masterpieces from France, such as the “Portrait of Lady” (La Belle Ferronière) by Leonardo (from the Louvre), “Napoleon Crossing the Alps” by Jacques-Louis David (from Chateau de Malmaison) and the “Self-Portrait” by Vincent Van Gogh (from Orsay).

THE LOUVRE MUSEUM AND THE ABU DHABI DEAL: A MODEL TO BE IMITATED OR AVOIDED?

The birth of the Louvre Abu Dhabi Museum has invariably raised great controversy in France, where many contested the commercialization of such a noble brand. On 12th December 2006 the French newspaper Le Monde published the article “Les musées ne sont pas à vendre” (transl.: Museums are not for sale) by Françoise Cachin, Jean Clair and Roland Recht “where they claimed that” Les œuvres d’art sont a patrimoine à montrer, pas une attraction ni une marchandise ” (transl.: Works of art are heritage to show, not an attraction or a commodity). And they concluded the article stressing that “les objets du patrimoine ne sont pas des biens de consommation, et préserver leur avenir, c’est garantir, pour demain, leur valeur universelle” (transl.: heritage objects are not consumer goods, and preserving their future means guaranteeing, for tomorrow, their universal value).

The Louvre deal is certainly a way to promote its own “brand” and Western art and customs in countries with different cultures – in this case the Arab world. It is also a way to promote Paris abroad, in addition to significant economic speculation.

However, this phenomenon risks triggering the perverse mechanism that induces in the loan policy to privilege the museum/partner which is wealthier than the others, marginalizing all the “serious” but less wealthy museums. Even the museum, a noble cultural institution of our Society, would become a mere business.

But are we really sure that this cultural and commercial deal is not simply a means of “selling one’s soul”?

BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Maria Vittoria Marini Clarelli, Il Museo nel mondo contemporaneo, Carocci Editore, 2014, p. 196

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WHY A NEW BLOG

Today the web provides a huge amount of information, photos and news of all kinds. This is certainly a very positive development for the dissemination of knowledge: an immense free offer of information immediately available. On the other hand, the risk of running into unreliable news is very high. This is detrimental to any web user, but then it becomes unacceptable when the news pertains to the scientific field.

Hence the desire to share a blog of information on Archeology, in particular and the Sciences in general, analytically verifying each source (bibliographic and non) of the news, reporting it accurately. This is in order to provide “reliable” tools to other scholars who would otherwise have to undertake additional research in the same field.

However, in addition to archaeologists, historians and scholars in general, this blog has the ambition of delivering the news it contains to any enthusiast or “common” reader who loves Archeology.

So, our goal is to include rather than exclude, to approach rather than push away.

Consistent with this principle is the language used in this blog: the English language. The use of the Italian language would have excluded the majority of potential readers of the articles to follow. English is a “democratic” language because it is understood and spoken by everyone.

Therefore, despite the purely scientific nature of this blog, we will try to use a simple and comprehensible language for everyone. Of course, it is not frequent that archaeological and scientific articles can be read easily and with pleasure, but this is our intent. A great archaeologist and historian of ancient art, the Sienese nobleman Ranuccio Bianchi Bandinelli, remembered, amused, that the best review of his book “Roman art at the center of power”, published in the collection directed by André Malraux “L’univers des formes “, had been that of a mediocre opponent, who, thinking of undermining the work, had said that the book by Bianchi Bandinelli was not to be studied, but to be read. (1) Hopefully we will be able to say the same, even if on a different note, about this blog and the diversity of the topics which we will offer below.

Another reason that led us to embark on this adventure is that scientific dissemination in general, and that relating to the classical world in particular, have been and continue to be the glory and pride of the Anglo-Saxon culture. As a great civilization of Dilettanti (amateurs) – as a glorious association of eighteenth-century English archaeologists was called – the Anglo-Saxon world has developed a scientific literature for the delight of the common person, the “commoner” over time. (2) This literary tradition has reached an ever-wider audience.

In Italy, meanwhile, the Academic world has withdrawn on an “Olympus of knowledge”, self-referential and with an indifference to the thirst for knowledge of the “common people”. Academics, scholars, museum directors tend to take as their main – often exclusive – reference, their own scientific community. From popular scientific television programs by the BBC to those by Alberto or Piero Angela, from Roberto Giacobbo to Mario Tozzi, which play that role of “trait d’union”- intermediary – in that “vacuum” between the scientific world and the “common people”, at the moment too distant.

Fortunately, in recent times, even in our country, we have begun to record encouraging signs from “enlightened” directors of museums, superintendents and academics who have gradually started to turn their gaze towards the “real world”, but the road is still very long and we are only at the beginning.

Bibliography

Preface by Mario Torelli in Tὃlle-Kastenbein, Archeologia dell’Acqua, Longanesi & C. Milano 2005, p. 1
Ibid p.1