Hmmm, sounds like prostitution to me...</p>
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/06/wo...gewanted=print</p><div class="timestamp">March 6, 2007</div>
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Price of a Good Name? For Louvre: $520 Million
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</nyt_byline><div class="byline">By ALAN RIDING</div>
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PARIS, March 6 ? What?s the price of a good name? </p>
How about a cool $520 million?</p>
That is the amount that Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, agreed today to pay to attach the Louvre?s
name to a new museum that it hopes to open in 2012. And there is more:
in exchange for art loans, special exhibitions and management advice,
Abu Dhabi will pay France a further $747 million.</p>
Controversy over the so-called Louvre Abu Dhabi has been swirling in
France for the past three months, with critics charging that the French
government is ?selling? its museums. But only now have the full details
of the $1.267 billion package been disclosed.</p>
For Abu Dhabi, the deal marks an important step in its plan to build
a $27 billion tourist and cultural development on Saadiyat Island,
opposite the city. The project?s cultural components include a
Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, a maritime museum and a performing arts center as
well as the Louvre Abu Dhabi.</p>
For France, the agreement signals a new willingness to exploit this
country?s culture for both political and economic ends. In this case,
it also represents something of a payback: the United Arab Emirates has
ordered 40 Airbus 380 aircraft and has bought some $10.4 billion worth
of armaments from France over the past decade.</p>
The agreement was signed today in Abu Dhabi by France?s culture
minister, Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres, and the president of Abu Dhabi?s
tourism authority, Sheik Sultan bin Tahnoon al-Nahayan. Henri Loyrette,
the president of the Louvre, was among the many senior French museum
officials in attendance.</p>
The Louvre Abu Dhabi, which has been designed by the French
architect Jean Nouvel as a 260,000 square-foot complex covered by a
flying saucer-like roof, is expected to cost around $108 million to
build. Planned as a universal museum, it will include art from all eras
and regions, including Islamic art.</p>
The project will be overseen by a new International Agency for
French Museums that is to include the Musée d?Orsay, the Georges
Pompidou Center, the Musée Guimet, the Château de Versailles, the Musée
Rodin, the Musée du Quai Branly and the Louvre among its members. This
new agency is also expected to look for new international partners in
the coming years.</p>
Still, it was inevitable that the focus of attention should be the
renting of the Louvre?s name. It was this that upset many French
traditionalists, including 4,700 signatories of an online petition
objecting to the accord. But it was also the Louvre brand that Abu
Dhabi most coveted to add prestige to its ambitious Saadiyat Island
plan.</p>
?It?s a fair fee for the concession of the name,? Mr. Loyrette told
Agence-France Presse in Abu Dhabi. ?This tutelary role deserves reward.
It?s normal.?</p>
Apart from paying $520 million to the French agency for the use of
the Louvre name for 30 years, with $195 million to be paid within one
month, Abu Dhabi has also agreed to make a direct donation of $32.5
million to the Louvre itself to refurbish a wing of the Pavillon de
Flore to display international art.</p>
This gallery, to be ready by 2010, will carry the name of Sheik
Zayed bin Sultan al-Nahayan, the founder and long-time ruler of the
United Arab Emirates, who died in 2004. Abu Dhabi will also finance a
new Abu Dhabi art research center in France and pay for restoration of
the Château de Fontainebleau?s theater, which will be named after Sheik
Khalifa Bin Zayed al-Nahayan, the current president.</p>
For a government-owned cultural institution in France to carry the
name of a corporate or foreign donor is also a first and may well raise
eyebrows here. In the past, for instance, the Louvre has turned down
offers of financial help from philanthropists who demanded that a
gallery be named after them in return.</p>
There is no question that France is profiting handsomely from this
deal: in exchange for $247 million, it will rotate between 200 and 300
art works through the Louvre Abu Dhabi over a 10-year period; it will
be paid $214.5 million over 20 years for the management expertise
provided by its new museums agency; and it will provide four temporary
exhibitions per year for 15 years in exchange for $253.5 million.</p>
In a telephone interview from Abu Dhabi, Mubarak Al-Muhairi, the
deputy chairman of the emirate?s tourism authority, dismissed rumors
that the new museum would reject loans or exhibitions from France
including Christian religious art or depicting, say, nudity. ?In
principle, there are no restrictions,? he said, ?but both sides will
agree on what is shown.?</p>
He said that the authority?s hope was that the Louvre Abu Dhabi and the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, which is being designed by Frank Gehry, will open by or soon after 2012, with the other parts of the cultural center to follow.</p>
He added that while Abu Dhabi is expected to spend around $520
million over the next decade to assemble its own art holdings, ?it is
our intention to build the collection gradually so as not to disturb
the market.? In this, the French museums agency is also expected to
play an advisory role.</p>
In a statement, Sheikh Khalifa Bin Zayed Al Nahyan said the accord
reinforced Abu Dhabi?s vision of becoming :a world-class destination
bridging global cultures.? In a message read at today?s ceremony,
France?s president, Jacques Chirac, said it ?sealed a partnership with the world?s most visited and well known museum.? </p>
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