The New York Times reminds us all (login required) that the next cultural construction boom isn’t in New York, or L.A., or even in London or Paris, but in the United Arab Emirates, where massive investments in real estate and civic infrastructure now include the arts.
The Times article details the newly unveiled plans for $27 billion worth of cultural development, including three museums by iconic architects — Frank Gehry, Jean Nouvel, and Tadao Ando — as well as a multi-venue performing arts center by Zaha Hadid (music hall, concert hall, opera house, and two theaters, one seating up to 6,300)…oh, and an arts college, arts schools, and 19 public pavilions.
In all, the project, known as the Cultural District of Saadiyat Island, would create an exhibition space intended to turn this once-sleepy desert city along the Persian Gulf into an international arts capital and tourist destination. If completed according to plan sometime in the next decade, consultants predict, it could be the world’s largest single arts-and-culture development project in recent memory.
Youssef Ibrahim in the New York Sun thinks the effort brash and ill-considered. Abeer Mishkhas in the Arab News wonders why a big chunk of the art has to come from the Louvre (another chunk will be part of the Guggenheim franchise).
This Abu Dhabi arts mega-plex announcement comes after similarly lofty blueprints emerged in nearby Dubai (say those last two words five times fast), and concurrent initiatives to develop more integrated and thoughtful cultural policy for the neighboring country of Oman.
While the effort may well lead these cities to the same challenges and frustrations of every other city that’s constructed an iconic cultural edifice, at least we can be sure that the consultant economy will flourish in the Middle East.
27 billion! Who knew it was possible for a foreign government to spend almost as much on art as we spend on a year of war?
Selfishly, the first question that comes to my mind is, how can the American arts community get involved? US government support for international touring is woefully thin. We have no major American equivalent to organizations like the British Council. And though other nations often make a practice of hosting arts presenters and managers in order to learn more about American artists and find good matches for their countries, the US rarely has the funds to reciprocate.
My fear is that a presenter on Saadiyat Island looking to book an American act might look no further than Las Vegas or Broadway. How are we going to introduce the UAE to the breadth of American arts with our essentially isolationist arts policy?
As a public school music educator, I hope the US government understands this art “Arab” support will also include their K-12 schools. And in the next generation, create a country that out performs the American Creative Class in business as well as the arts.
It is in the book, The Silicon Savior, in which the author states: “nearly without exception, the most creative engineers in Silicon Valley are practicing musicians.”