Page 10 - Highlights of the Collection

I N TR O D U C TI O N

Souraya Noujaim
Scientific, Curatorial and Collections Management Director

Inaugurated in November 2017, Louvre Abu Dhabi is the first museum on
the Arabian Peninsula to embody the universal concept inherited from
the museums of the Enlightenment. Located on the waterside of Saadiyat
Island, Louvre Abu Dhabi is a vibrant museum-city with its pavilions, squares,
labyrinths and canals intended to remind visitors of Arabian medinas and
falajs, the traditional system of irrigation and cooling used in Emirate
oases. Integrated within the environment and the cityscape, the museum
exemplifies that stimulating challenge of inventing a global museum
experience, echoed in the dual magnetism of each object: first, teaching
visitors of its origins and history; second, relating it to the overall context,
climate and elements.
This combination of a universal framing and the visualisation of
exemplary works from many different cultures at Louvre Abu Dhabi produces
a historical narrative of human exchanges, whether intellectual or technical,
revealing the extent to which our societies are indebted to each other. The Highlights of the Collection
dialogue thus revolves around the key question of cultural, technological
or iconographic transfers, whether grouping the exhibits formally or
thematically with a view to highlighting the convergences and singularities of
transnational artistic expression.
Although globalisation and “multi-culti” have become modern- Louvre Abu Dhabi
Juz’Amma, 30th section day buzzwords, they are not recent phenomena. At each stage of history,
of the Holy Quran (detail)
Syria, Damascus (?), 1250-1300 globalisation has drawn and redrawn maps of migration and complex

9