Louvre Abu Dhabi announces major exhibitions for new season

Louvre Abu Dhabi’s 2019-2020 season will launch in September and will include four exhibitions to explore how the arts have channelled and acted as a witness to society throughout history.

It will be accompanied by live performances, world-renowned installations, music, poetry and family events.

Commenting on the new season, Manuel Rabaté, Director of Louvre Abu Dhabi, said: "This upcoming season entitled 'Changing Societies' represents our boldest and most extensive programme to date. Supported by our incredible network of international partners, we are able to bring exhibitions of quality and scale that are unparalleled in the region.’’ Costume Adventure, a new interactive space in the Children’s Museum opening on 9th July, 2019, will enable the youngest art enthusiasts to learn about the costumes of characters from history found in some of the museum’s artworks.

The public programme for the season introduces a thematic, line-up curated by Ruth Mackenzie, CBE.

The international exhibitions include, for the first time in the Middle East, Rendezvous in Paris: Picasso, Chagall, Modigliani & Co. (1900-1939) (18th September to 7th December, 2019). Held in partnership with Centre Pompidou, the exhibition will allow visitors to discover the Paris of the "Roaring Twenties" – a Bohemian hub for artists from across Europe, many of whom left their home countries in search of a place where they could truly and safely express themselves.

Presenting more than 80 works of art, which are being exhibited for the first time in the Middle East, the exhibition will include masterpieces by Pablo Picasso, Marc Chagall, Amedeo Modigliani, Sonia Delaunay, Giorgio De Chirico, Juan Gris, Constantin Brancusi, Tamara de Lempicka, Brassaï and others. Organised by Louvre Abu Dhabi, Centre Pompidou and Agence France-Muséums, the exhibition is curated by Christian Briend, Head Curator, Modern Art Collection, Centre Pompidou, assisted by Anna Hiddleston, Assistant Curator, Modern Art, Centre Pompidou.

Inspired by Picasso’s Cubist artworks and the poetry of Jean Cocteau and Guillaume Apollinaire, the exhibition will launch with an exciting cultural programme as Cubism is brought to life across the museum.

Between 18th and 21st September, visitors will be able to encounter ‘living machines’ which will roam the museum, and be amazed by choreographer Elizabeth Streb and her STREB Extreme Action Troupe who will combine acrobatics, circus arts and contemporary dance to give a spectacular performance on giant machines.

Other highlights include a September Family Weekend on 27th and 28th September, with workshops inspired by Picasso and Cocteau. The programme also includes a series of film screenings curated by Emirati artist Hind Mezaina and a talk by the exhibition curator, Christian Briend.

The cultural programme around the exhibition will conclude with an electro-night hosted with Abu Dhabi label Boogie Box on 21st November, with live sets from Amon Tobin and his Two Fingers DJ Set, Molecule Live and Boogie Box DJs, Hassan Alwan and Tristan Girault.

OTHER MAJOR EXHIBITIONS -10,000 Years of Luxury (30th October, 2019, to 15th February, 2020) Another ground-breaking exhibition in the Middle East, 10,000 Years of Luxury, will, for the first time in the region, explore the history of luxury. Featuring 350 extraordinary objects from the fields of fashion, jewellery, art, furniture and design, the show will look at the various ways luxury has been interpreted by diverse cultures throughout history Inspired by this exhibition, Louvre Abu Dhabi will work with performers and artists to create priceless experiences with the theme ‘luxuries are what money can’t buy’. Part of this will celebrate the place of the Diva in the history of popular music through concerts led by local and international singers offering tributes to the great divas Umm Kulthum and Fairuz as well as exploring the idea of the diva today.

Alongside the exhibition 10,000 Years of Luxury, Louvre Abu Dhabi presents the olfactory art installation; USO - The Perfumed Cloud (USO = Unidentified Scented Object) from 30th October to 1st February, 2020, created by Maison Cartier’s in-house perfumer Mathilde Laurent with Transsolar KlimaEngineering.

-Furusiyya: The Art of Chivalry between East and West (19th February to 30th May, 2020) The exhibition explores a unique and extraordinary link, where Furusiyya in the East meets Chivalry in the West, and how these distinct practices of combat and knightly values led to a specific social class and culture in the Islamic East and largely Christian West.

-Charlie Chaplin: When Art Met Cinema (15th April to 11th July, 2020) Featuring around 100 paintings, drawings, sculptures, photographs, archives and film scenes, the exhibition reveals the relationship between Chaplin’s work and those of his contemporaries who constantly addressed each in their own way, the rapidly changing world of the first half of the twentieth century.

-In the Galleries – from September As a part of the museum’s annual rotation, new masterpieces from the museum’s international partners will go on show in the permanent galleries.

New to the modern and contemporary galleries of the museum will be Edouard Manet’s well-known portrait of Berthe Morisot with a bouquet of violets (1872) from the Musee d’Orsay and a dance mask from Central Africa (c. 1970), from Musee du quai Branly-Jacques Chirac. A large sculpture, Untitled by Anish Kapoor (2008), and Max Ernst’s Ubu Imperator (1923), both on loan from the Centre Pompidou, will also be on display. In the final gallery, there will be an immersive installation by contemporary artist Susanna Fritscher, entitled Fur die Luft; on loan from Centre Pompidou and created specifically for the museum’s unique architecture and the natural play of light.

Entrance to the exhibitions and the Children’s Museum is free, with the museum’s admission ticket at AED63. Admission is free for children under 13.