Spectacular... Photograph: Guggenheim Museum Bilbao
Is the Guggenheim today's equivalent of Planet Hollywood? During the 1990s, it seemed like anywhere lucky enough to acquire an outlet of the celebrity-sponsored restaurant chain had been admitted into some exclusive club of elite global cities. Now it seems you're not on the map unless you've got a Guggenheim, writes Steve Rose.
The latest grateful host is Abu Dhabi, where Frank Gehry - architect of the spectacular Bilbao Guggenheim - is due to design the biggest Guggenheim yet. No doubt it will be amazing - another jewel in the foundation's glittering architectural crown, alongside works by Frank Lloyd Wright and Rem Koolhaas. But if there's one place that doesn't need an economically regenerating "Guggenheim effect" it's surely oil-rich Abu Dhabi. Is this a genuine cultural initiative, or just a ploy to lure Middle East shoppers away from Dubai's designer boutiques?
Art and power go together like burger and fries, of course, but the list of Guggenheim-approved cities so far tells its own weird story, as much financial as cultural: New York, Venice, Bilbao, Berlin (where it's actually a joint venture with Deutsche Bank), Las Vegas (within the colossal Venetian casino), and now Abu Dhabi.
But what will they actually put in the new museum? This is after all, the place where gay partygoers were arrested and thrown in prison last year, when a minister announced, "Our society does not accept queer behaviour, either in word or in action." No Robert Mapplethorpe, then. Or Warhol, Georgia O'Keefe, Cocteau. Nor, apparently, will the Abu Dhabi outlet have any nude paintings, overtly religious themes, or anything vaguely controversial. What does that leave?
"Our objective is not to be confrontational, but to be engaged in a cultural exchange," Guggenheim director Thomas Krens said last week. You could argue that Abu Dhabi is exactly the kind of place where exposure to modern art is needed, but will the museum be anything more than a glorified franchise outlet offering a taste of "the west"? Or could a strategic hanging of Mondrians end the war on terror?
