Across space and time

The Abu Dhabi Louvre is a reminder of space and its conversations with art

Two recent openings, in deserts separated by geographies but linked by architecture, have given us pause for thought on the relationship between art and the space in which it is housed. It is an affiliation that has always existed, but in recent times it is breaking barriers in ways we had hardly imagined. Last week, the Rajasthan chief minister inaugurated an unusual Sculpture Park at Nahargarh’s Madhavendra Palace in Jaipur, and when a curator-friend I respect called it “stupendous”, I knew a great idea had taken root.

The Sculpture Park is extraordinary on many counts. In a medieval fort palace, it consists of edgy works by contemporary artists you would little expect, given how Rajasthan leans towards the conservative when it comes to its history. But neither should one forget that Jaipur, for all its emphasis on traditional crafts, is also the design crucible of the country. This is where international designers gravitate towards when wanting to work with handmade crafts and textiles in the current idiom. An initiative of the state government, the Sculpture Park may surprise visitors with its contemporary avant-garde, yet it seems to have been organically born, almost as if it belongs there by reason of natural evolution — which, in a sense, is exactly right.

The 12 Indian and nine international artists whose works are housed in these precincts have risen to the challenge of the monumental, momentous space. While a few cannot escape the quality of museum placement, others seem to have been placed as though by serendipity. The abiding image is of Huma Bhabha’s totemic God of Some Things, but Ravinder Reddy’s sack-carrying woman, Subodh Gupta’s eponymous bartans or Mrinalini Mukherjee’s iconic sculpture create a dialogue with Stephen Cox, a long-time India admirer, James Brown and Hans Josephsohn in a conducive rather than an antagonistic manner. In a space where history treads easily, these artists and their curator have spun a legend that reinterprets the assimilation of art with architecture. In India, where we do not respect museums enough, this is the most significant culture story to emerge in 2017.

Across the gulf, in the Emirates, the Abu Dhabi Louvre is another reminder of space and its conversations with art. Here, it is the Jean Nouvel-designed building that is contemporary, built like a sculpture with its complex domed roof consisting of a constellation of stars covering a series of simple architectural blocks surrounded by pools of water brought in continuously from the sea. In an interesting twist, what this astonishing structure houses is a history of mankind with its ancient artefacts, relics, art and manuscripts spanning several thousand years and curated in the manner of civilisational progression occurring simultaneously across different continents. 

Visitors at Louvre Abu Dhabi after it was thrown open to the public last month

It would have been easy for the Abu Dhabi Louvre to pander to European hegemony with medieval and modern art, or to local sentiments by way of a paean to the Arabic civilisation, but in opting to tell a story that is generic across regions — it describes itself as a universal museum — it has resulted in an exchange between objects and statuary from Borneo and Sumatra, from the Indic to the Egyptian, traced through developments in society, trade routes, courts and the birthing of a modern world. 

It seems as elemental to us to spend time gazing at a 5,000-year-old pot with drawings that appear surprisingly contemporary at the Abu Dhabi Louvre, as to view Thukral & Tagra’s installation in Nahargarh that locates itself within a 500-year-old time frame. Space — and by inference, architecture — is expandable. Far from swallowing up its contents, it stretches to accommodate mankind’s eternal quest for beauty and relevance. A separation of centuries hardly counts.

Kishore Singh is a Delhi-based writer and art critic. These views are personal and do not reflect those of the organisation with which he is associated