Louvre Abu Dhabi Finally Opens

Hovering at the edge of Saadiyat Island, the long-awaited Louvre Abu Dhabi opens on Nov. 11 as part of an ambitious cultural district that will include the Zayed National Museum and Guggenheim Abu Dhabi. Designed by French architect Jean Nouvel, its 23 galleries house a permanent collection with more than 600 works, including a 6th-century head of Buddha, Giovanni Bellini’s “Madonna and Child,” and nine canvases by Cy Twombly. As a testament to the museum’s global focus, American conceptual artist Jenny Holzer has engraved three monumental marble walls with text drawn from Arab historian Ibn Khaldun, a Mesopotamian tablet, and the French Renaissance philosopher Michel de Montaigne, while a collaboration between the United Arab Emirates and France provides loans from 13 leading cultural institutions: the Musée d’Orsay, Centre Pompidou, and Bibliothèque Nationale, among others. An inaugural special exhibition, “From One Louvre to Another: Opening a Museum for Everyone,” curated by the president-director of the Musée du Louvre, Jean-Luc Martinez, traces the history of the Louvre and is on display beginning Dec. 21.

(Photos: Mohamed Somji)