France's Louvre museum and America's Guggenheim will have Emirati branches, which will be built on the man-made island of Saadiyat in Abu Dhabi.

With a classical museum design concept, the French facility will bear the Louvre's name and is expected to cost US$108 million (Bt3.6 billion). French architect Jean Nouvel designed the Louvre Abu Dhabi as a 260,000-square-foot complex covered by a flying-saucer-like roof. Planned as a universal museum, it will include art from all eras and regions, including Islamic art. It is slated for opening in 2012.

The Guggenheim Abu Dhabi being designed by Frank Gehry is expected to open at about the same time.

Standing as architectural landmarks, the two "chain museums" are an important step in the plan to build a $27 billion tourist and cultural development on Saadiyat Island, opposite Abu Dhabi. Besides the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi and the Louvre Abu Dhabi, the project's cultural components willinclude a maritime museum and a performing arts centre.

Controversy over the Louvre Abu Dhabi has been swirling in France for the past three months, with critics accusing the French government of "selling" its museums. The project upset many French traditionalists, including 4,700 signatories of an online petition objecting to the accord on the website of "La Tribune de l'Art". The Louvre project is the result of a 30-year cultural accord signed by the UAE and France.

"It's a fair fee for the concession of the name," Louvre museum director Henri Loyrette told Agence-France Presse in Abu Dhabi. "This tutelary role deserves reward. It's normal."

Alan Riding of New York Times commented that for France the agreement signalled a new willingness to exploit its culture for political and economic ends. "In this case, it also represents something of a payback: the United Arab Emirates has ordered 40 Airbus A380 aircraft and has bought about $10.4 billion worth of armaments from France during the last decade."

Abu Dhabi will also finance a new Abu Dhabi art research centre in France and pay for restoration of the Chateau de Fontainebleau's theatre, which will be named after Sheik Khalifa bin Zayed al-Nahayan, its current president.

The Arab world seems to be a new destination for the art market. Early this month, the first Gulf Art Fair was held at the Dubai International Financial Centre. Forty international art galleries and 400 artists from around the globe took part in the event, from March 7 to 10. The fair reflects the boom in the contemporary art market in Dubai. In 2005, Christie's showed the potential of Dubai by opening a regional office there and staging its first auction the following May.

Meanwhile, the emirate of Sharjah is holding its eighth Biennial from April 4 to June 4. Titled "Still Life: Art, Ecology and the Politics of Change", the biennial presents visual arts and film that address the growing social, political and environmental challenges the world is facing due to excessive urban development, pollution, political ambition and the thoughtless misuse, abuse and exhaustion of natural resources.

More than 70 artists are participating, among them Rirkrit Tiravanija and Soi Project featuring Wit Pimkarnjanapong, and Bangkok-based Japanese artist Jiro Endo.

The festival will be held at the Sharjah Art Museum, Expo Centre Sharjah, Heritage Area, American University of Sharjah and several outdoor locations around Sharjah.

The Sharjah Biennial 8 will focus on the renewed role of art in addressing a wide range of issues that directly and radically affect, and with alarming magnitude, human existence on this earth. Participating artists are expected to reflect the rapid changes in the Arab world.

This biennial will assert a strategy of "cross-pollination" rather than insulation, falling in with other attempts to merge art, society, and environmental issues. The aim is not to judge or tell people how to live their lives, but to raise these concerns in order to understand our everyday relationship with nature and the environment and our responsibility towards them. Besides indoor exhibitions and public art activities, the organisers will also hold a symposium on thetheme "Art and Ecology".

Although controversy over museums and art festivals in the Arab world arise from money, they are part of national policy to promote the UAE as a new cultural and tourism hub.

Back to Thailand, where we will have our world-standard Bangkok Art and Culture Centre at the Pathumwan intersection by the end of this year. Hopefully, this new arts centre will not act as a dead museum. Preparations for sustainable management and finding partners abroad to loan art collections are among the urgent requirements.

Phatarawadee Phataranawik