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FRANCE - French museums have joined foreign museums in the rush to set up branches abroad - renting their name and lending items from their collections - and the trend has triggered anguish in the French art world. Is this promoting culture or selling one's soul?
The concern began last year when the Louvre agreed to lend works, including canvases by Poussin and Raphael, to the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, Georgia, under a three-year deal worth US$6.4 million ($9.3 million), which will be used to refurbish the Louvre's decorative arts galleries.
Then the Georges Pompidou Centre said it would establish an annex bearing its name in the Chinese city of Shanghai in 2009, after unsuccessfully trying to set up in Hong Kong, and the Rodin Museum sketched plans to open a branch in Brazil.
The last straw for some was when it emerged that Abu Dhabi was negotiating a fat contract with the French Government to build an annex of the Louvre on the site of a proposed tourist resort in the Gulf and fill it with items from French museums until the United Arab Emirates (UAE) develops its own collection of art.
The "Abu Dhabi Louvre", due to be built by 2012, would be located on Saadiyat Island alongside four other museums, 29 luxury hotels, three marinas, two golf courses and private villas. The director of the Louvre, Henri Loyette, was barely consulted about the scheme, and when he raised reservations he was overruled, according to the press.
That did it for Francoise Cachin, head of France's National Museum Council.
In a blistering article in Le Monde entitled "Museums are not for sale", Cachin joined Jean Clair, honorary curator-general and former director of the Picasso Museum, and Roland Recht, a professor of art history at the College de France academy, to accuse the Government of looting museums and breaking up collections in exchange for a quick buck and a dollop of political grease.
"From the moral perspective, the media and commercial use of masterpieces from our national heritage ... can only be a source of shock," they said. "Our political leaders went to offer this royal and diplomatic gift in exchange for some €1 billion euros [$1.9 billion]. Does that not amount to selling one's soul?"
The trio said they supported the traditional lending of art works for free, as part of cultural exchange and enrichment. "But the objects of our heritage are not consumer goods. To preserve their future is to guarantee their universal value for tomorrow."
An art website, www.latribunedelart.com launched a petition to demand that national collections "remain intact". This week it had more than 2000 signatures, including those of the heads of French museums and leading names in art education.
The daily Liberation said the Government was acting "with a quasi-Soviet fashion" by trying to use art for political ends. "The Louvre is not a brand of luxury goods, nor is it a bargaining counter for the Quai d'Orsay," (the headquarters of France's Foreign Ministry), it fumed.
Museums have a high standing with the French public as commonly owned cultural assets and are well subsidised by the state. The most prominent ones, such the Louvre, the Musee d'Orsay, the Orangerie, the Cite des Sciences and the new Quai Branly, are massively popular. Unlike exhibitions in Britain or the United States, corporate sponsorship is rare or low-key. And the souvenir shops at museums usually have a small, discreet range of goods, pitched at the high-quality, intellectual end of the market. Art books, fine prints and a few posters of a Monet, van Gogh or Rodin are the typical fare; coffee mugs, keyrings and other down-market products are out.
But Louvre director Loyrette now says: "I can't see what all the fuss is about. Money is important, but that's not the driver for our actions."
The Atlanta and Abu Dhabi projects were exceptional, he said. Normally, the Louvre did not take fees for lending works.
His position is not without support. Some politicians argue the Louvre cannot stand still when New York's Guggenheim already has five annexes, from Las Vegas to Venice, and wants to get in on the Saadiyat Island project, while the British Museum and the Victoria & Albert Museum in London have created tie-ups in China.
One influential voice is that of former socialist culture minister, Jack Lang. "We shouldn't act like frightened virgins" when money and art come together, he said. "So long as museums keep moral and scientific grip on their expertise and works, everything will be fine. In the global cultural war, it's a good thing if the French fight to put forward our concept of culture."
According to Le Monde, France would receive €350 million for lending several hundred items in temporary and long-term exhibitions in Dubai over 10 years, and an additional sum, still under negotiation, for the right to use the Louvre's name for 20 years. The works would come from various French museums but principally the Louvre.
Museums would have the right to refuse to lend an item. The money from the scheme would go to France's national museum agency, the Louvre and lending museums, but would not affect existing subsidies from the state, Le Monde said.
Other reports say the UAE is earmarking another €500 million to build the museum itself - the French architect Jean Nouvel, who designed the acclaimed Quai Branly, is a frontrunner for the design job.
