LOUVRE ABU DHABI, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES | 2020
A story is being written as the geolocated visitors wander the galleries of Louvre Abu Dhabi, discovering the various artworks. Voices, music and sounds evolve according to the visitors’ movements, pace and path. Recorded in six languages (English, French, German, Mandarin, Russian and Arabic) and played through headphones, this immersive narrative is a call to discover our world heritage through art, its history and its major political role.
Has government always been the art of staging power to secure authority, legitimacy and prestige? Could this timeless adage be a red herring, a farce and a ruse? And what if, under the disguise of a submissive, affable liegeman, art had actually taken over; and in which case, how can we, in our day and age, find a new way to tell its story? The history of its insane power and genius, its unique way of building strong, yet invisible, connections between the people and the world around them? What if art history boiled down to the one single question our narrator asks implicitly: can the world and mankind be saved by the beauty of a single piece of art?