Le Louvre Inc.: France’s Iconic Museum goes global
I.M. Pei’s glass pyramid serves as the museum’s entrance since 1989.
TIME Magazine writes about the revival of the world’s most renowned museum under the reign of Henri Loyrette, its ambitious director. Armed with a vision of the Louvre as a beacon of culture that is both accessible and global, he has set in motion a dramatic opening up to the outside world. So far, that includes signing a controversial deal to create a Louvre museum in Abu Dhabi, and staging exhibitions of the museum’s treasures in places like Atlanta, Oklahoma City, Kobe, Valencia and Macao.
The Abu Dhabi Louvre project is underway with this design by French architect Jean Nouvel. (Courtesy Jean Nouvel)
He helped organizing a charity auction and a Duran Duran concert held under the Louvre’s landmark glass pyramid:
Most controversially, Loyrette has also invited contemporary artists to exhibit at the Louvre and even decorate it — provoking howls of protests from French detractors. An exhibition by Belgian artist Jan Fabre that was held earlier this summer in galleries containing Dutch and Flemish masterpieces a gigantic. The show included an self-portrait as an earthworm wriggling on upended gravestones and sharing a space with 21 Rubens depictions of Marie de Medicis.
Fabre’s controversial new work, Self-Portrait as the World’s Biggest Worm, is not to everyone’s taste.
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