Charles Merewether
is participant at
A New Geography of Art in the Making
Abstract
Imagining a Museum Culture in the 21st Century: The Case of Abu Dhabi
The presentation will take as a case study the conception of a museum culture in Abu Dhabi, the capital city of Abu Dhabi. The example of Abu Dhabi is a relatively unique insofar as this idea was conceived within an environment in which there is a relative lack of a museum culture in the Emirates. The paper will explore the context and points of reference in which it was conceived and developed. In so doing, it will address how the concept of the city as the locus of social formation and the notion of the metropolitan as the site of global exchange has informed this development. The paper will further consider the challenges of its conception at a time in which culture has increasingly assumed a geo-political dimension that characterizes the ideological formation of globalization. This will open up discussions concerning the role of the museum and other forms of the ‘cultural’ such as Biennales etc. within a global culture today. In particular, it will consider the reciprocal impact between globalization and the promise of culture as the site of the ‘social.’
