Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Berge’s apartment on the rue du Babylone on Paris’ Left Bank. Pierre Legrain’s Art Deco stool, one of the first objects to be acquired by the Louvre Abu Dhabi, can be seen in the foreground. Courtesy Fondation Pierre Berge – Yves Saint Laurent
Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Berge’s apartment on the rue du Babylone on Paris’ Left Bank. Pierre Legrain’s Art Deco stool, one of the first objects to be acquired by the Louvre Abu Dhabi, can be seeShow more
More than a master collection
Many of the artwork pieces acquired by the Louvre Abu Dhabi are temporarily, but prudently, being borrowed back or loaned by other prestigious institutions while the work on the capital’s museum is in progress.
Two weeks ago, a very special reunion took place at the Fondation Pierre Berge – Yves Saint Laurent in Paris.
Jacques Doucet – Yves Saint Laurent, Vivre pour l'Art brings together 120 masterpieces from the former collections of two of France's greatest couturiers and art collectors.
Yves Saint Laurent died in 2008 but is still a household name while the other, Doucet, has entered the annals of art history as the man who lived with Picasso's Les Demoiselles d'Avignon in his hallway.
In the case of Saint Laurent's collection, this meant reacquainting works by masters such as Leger, Goya, Picasso, de Chirico and Gericault, as well as two pieces that now belong to the permanent collection of the Louvre Abu Dhabi, a beechwood stool by the French Art Deco designer Pierre Legrain and Composition with Blue, Red, Yellow and Black, a 1922 painting by the Dutch Modernist Piet Mondrian.
These objects are some of the first examples of loans that have been made from the Louvre Abu Dhabi collection rather than to it, along with the museum's Game of Bezique (1881) by the French Impressionist Gustave Caillebotte, which recently appeared on loan at the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC, but the loans are possible only because the Louvre Abu Dhabi is still a work in progress.
“Once the Louvre Abu Dhabi is open, every artwork will have to stay in the museum for the first two to three years because of the museography,” says Najla Obaid Busit, a researcher with the Abu Dhabi Tourism and Culture Authority (TCA) and part of the Louvre Abu Dhabi team.
“This includes every artwork, and if a museum wanted to borrow the Mondrian or the Caillebotte once the museum is open, we don’t know if we would be able to do it.”
If the Mondrian and Legrain are key exhibits in Paris, they are also landmark acquisitions in the history of Abu Dhabi’s new museum as the first two works acquired.
“The Mondrian is not just an important artwork in the history of art, it’s also important for the history of collecting and the history of fashion,” says Ms Obaid Busit, who is part of the collection management team.
“We were really pushed by our curators to loan the piece back to the Yves Saint Laurent foundation because we got the piece from them in the first place, and we want to be able to lend it back so that it could displayed alongside the other artworks that were acquired by Yves Saint Laurent.”
Before the loan was agreed, the TCA commissioned a conservator to assess the painting, establish its conservation requirements and determine whether it was able to travel.
A year’s worth of data was also required on the suitability of the environment in the gallery where the painting was going to be displayed.
“Our priority is the longevity of the artwork, so we try to establish a safe environment around the artwork,” says Ms Obaid Busit.
A study was done using a low-level light source to reveal the condition of the painting’s surface in great detail, the results of which not only provided a baseline against which any future changes can be measured but also revealed details of Mondrian’s painting technique.
“We could see all of the details of the painting’s surface, the cracks and the brushstrokes,” Ms Obaid Busit says.
“The research not only allowed us to understand how better to transport the artwork in the most secure way possible, but also to understand the techniques and the materials that the artist was using.
“This is research that we can now make available to somebody from another museum who might be studying Mondrian.”
One of three paintings owned by Saint Laurent that are credited with inspiring his famous Mondrian collection, Composition with Blue, Red, Yellow and Black set a record for the artist when it was bought by the Louvre Abu Dhabi for €21.5 million (Dh87.2m) at the 2009 Christie's auction of the art collection of Saint Laurent and Pierre Berge.
Held over three days at the Grand Palais in Paris the 733-piece “sale of the century” raised €373.9m (Dh1.5 billion), a record for a single owner collection at the time.
It attracted a 1,200-strong audience that included the Russian billionaire and Chelsea football club owner Roman Abramovich and the art dealer Larry Gagosian. Another 35,000 visitors queued for hours to see the pre-sale show.
That public response to the collection comes as no surprise to Jerome Neutres, the curator of Jacques Doucet – Yves Saint Laurent, Vivre pour l'Art, who understands Yves Saint Laurent's place in the French cultural consciousness and believes that such collections display an understanding of art that is missing from many contemporary galleries and museums.
“Museums now look like hospitals or classrooms. There’s too much light, too much explanation, too many audio guides. It’s boring and that’s why we have so few young people visiting them,” the curator says.
“What I want to show by recreating part of the interiors of Jacques Doucet and Yves Saint Laurent is that those collectors were the best museum curators in the world.”
Mr Neutres did not try to reconstruct the interiors of Doucet’s Neuilly-sur-Seine home on the rue Saint-James and Saint Laurent’s two-floor, nine-room Parisian apartment on the Rue du Babylone.
Instead, he used five rooms at the Fondation Pierre Berge – Yves Saint Laurent to recreate relationships between paintings, sculpture and furniture, many of which are being recombined for the first time since Doucet’s collection was sold at auction in 1972.
Doucet famously combined paintings such as Henri Rousseau’s dreamlike Snake Charmer with portraits by Modigliani and furniture by designers such as Legrain, Marcel Coard and Eileen Gray, many of which can be seen in Mr Neutres’s show.
“In those rooms, one can feel how an art collector can be seen as an artist. It wasn’t just a collection, they were making art installations,” he says. “Doucet mixed Cubism with African art, which was very meaningful because we know that Cubism was inspired by African art.”
The effects of these combinations create a sense of dialogue between objects that is reminiscent of many of the recent comments made by figures, such as Jean Francois Charnier, the curatorial director of Agence France-Museums, whose desire to build a global, cross-cultural history of art have helped to inform Louvre Abu Dhabi’s approach to museography in exhibitions such as last year’s Birth of a Museum at the Musee du Louvre in Paris.
“Our point of view at Louvre Abu Dhabi is that we want to show that civilisations and societies share common roots, and we believe it is possible to show this through art,” Mr Charnier said recently. “Putting artwork from different cultures together in a permanent collection is to talk about the way cultures and civilisations build their identities, and art can show how societies want to be different but also what they share.”
But one of the main differences between Doucet and Saint Laurent’s approach and that of the Louvre Abu Dhabi is in the collector’s willingness to create a dialogue between artworks from different historical periods, as well as cultures.
“The decors that Yves Saint Laurent and Doucet made in their homes were like installations, but they weren’t like museums, they were like art installations,” Mr Neutres says.
“They were creating new dialogues that revealed connections between art movements and civilisations. That can be seen in the way Yves Saint Laurent mixed Andy Warhol with Goya, Mondrian and Lalane, old Buddha sculptures and African masks.
“Doucet combined antique Asian art with modern art and we know that Brancusi was inspired by what he had seen at the Musee Guimet, the national museum of Asian art. This creates strong dialogues that any school student can see.”
For Mr Neutres, who started working on Vivre pour l’Art in 2012, the process of reassembling the 120 works involved a mixture of luck, detective work and the full persuasive powers of Pierre Berge and the staff at his foundation.
“There are still some works that belonged to Doucet that we do not know where they are, and in some cases, there were works that were impossible to loan,” the curator explains.
“At the end of the day, we got very lucky because I think the show was relevant enough and convincing enough to make the museum curators enthusiastic.”
Louvre Abu Dhabi’s Mondrian and Legrain stool will be on display until February next year, when they will leave as they arrived, in custom-made, vibration-proof cases under the watchful eye of a member of museum’s collection management team.
“Artworks like these cannot travel by themselves. They always have to travel with a courier,” Ms Obaid Busit says. “We handle the logistics, where artworks are stored and how they are moved. We are like their babysitters.”
When: The one-off Test starts on Friday, May 11 What time: Each day’s play is scheduled to start at 2pm UAE time. TV: The match will be broadcast on OSN Sports Cricket HD. Subscribers to the channel can also stream the action live on OSN Play.
Etihad, Emirates and Singapore Airlines fly direct from the UAE to Singapore from Dh2,265 return including taxes. The flight takes about 7 hours.
The hotel
Rooms at the M Social Singapore cost from SG $179 (Dh488) per night including taxes.
The tour
Makan Makan Walking group tours costs from SG $90 (Dh245) per person for about three hours. Tailor-made tours can be arranged. For details go to www.woknstroll.com.sg
Spending an excessive amount of time on the phone.
Neglecting personal, social, or academic responsibilities.
Losing interest in other activities or hobbies that were once enjoyed.
Having withdrawal symptoms like feeling anxious, restless, or upset when the technology is not available.
Experiencing sleep disturbances or changes in sleep patterns.
What are the guidelines?
Under 18 months: Avoid screen time altogether, except for video chatting with family.
Aged 18-24 months: If screens are introduced, it should be high-quality content watched with a caregiver to help the child understand what they are seeing.
Aged 2-5 years: Limit to one-hour per day of high-quality programming, with co-viewing whenever possible.
Aged 6-12 years: Set consistent limits on screen time to ensure it does not interfere with sleep, physical activity, or social interactions.
Teenagers: Encourage a balanced approach – screens should not replace sleep, exercise, or face-to-face socialisation.
Source: American Paediatric Association
In numbers: PKK’s money network in Europe
Germany: PKK collectors typically bring in $18 million in cash a year – amount has trebled since 2010
Revolutionary tax: Investigators say about $2 million a year raised from ‘tax collection’ around Marseille
Extortion: Gunman convicted in 2023 of demanding $10,000 from Kurdish businessman in Stockholm
Drug trade: PKK income claimed by Turkish anti-drugs force in 2024 to be as high as $500 million a year
Denmark: PKK one of two terrorist groups along with Iranian separatists ASMLA to raise “two-digit million amounts”
Contributions: Hundreds of euros expected from typical Kurdish families and thousands from business owners
TV channel: Kurdish Roj TV accounts frozen and went bankrupt after Denmark fined it more than $1 million over PKK links in 2013
Is it worth it? We put cheesecake frap to the test.
The verdict from the nutritionists is damning. But does a cheesecake frappuccino taste good enough to merit the indulgence?
My advice is to only go there if you have unusually sweet tooth. I like my puddings, but this was a bit much even for me. The first hit is a winner, but it's downhill, slowly, from there. Each sip is a little less satisfying than the last, and maybe it was just all that sugar, but it isn't long before the rush is replaced by a creeping remorse. And half of the thing is still left.
The caramel version is far superior to the blueberry, too. If someone put a full caramel cheesecake through a liquidiser and scooped out the contents, it would probably taste something like this. Blueberry, on the other hand, has more of an artificial taste. It's like someone has tried to invent this drink in a lab, and while early results were promising, they're still in the testing phase. It isn't terrible, but something isn't quite right either.
So if you want an experience, go for a small, and opt for the caramel. But if you want a cheesecake, it's probably more satisfying, and not quite as unhealthy, to just order the real thing.
Favourite book: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
Holiday choice: Anything Disney-related
Proudest achievement: Receiving a presidential award for foreign services.
Family: Wife and three children.
Like motto: You always get what you ask for, the universe listens.
Citizenship-by-investment programmes
United Kingdom
The UK offers three programmes for residency. The UK Overseas Business Representative Visa lets you open an overseas branch office of your existing company in the country at no extra investment. For the UK Tier 1 Innovator Visa, you are required to invest £50,000 (Dh238,000) into a business. You can also get a UK Tier 1 Investor Visa if you invest £2 million, £5m or £10m (the higher the investment, the sooner you obtain your permanent residency).
All UK residency visas get approved in 90 to 120 days and are valid for 3 years. After 3 years, the applicant can apply for extension of another 2 years. Once they have lived in the UK for a minimum of 6 months every year, they are eligible to apply for permanent residency (called Indefinite Leave to Remain). After one year of ILR, the applicant can apply for UK passport.
The Caribbean
Depending on the country, the investment amount starts from $100,000 (Dh367,250) and can go up to $400,000 in real estate. From the date of purchase, it will take between four to five months to receive a passport.
Portugal
The investment amount ranges from €350,000 to €500,000 (Dh1.5m to Dh2.16m) in real estate. From the date of purchase, it will take a maximum of six months to receive a Golden Visa. Applicants can apply for permanent residency after five years and Portuguese citizenship after six years.
“Among European countries with residency programmes, Portugal has been the most popular because it offers the most cost-effective programme to eventually acquire citizenship of the European Union without ever residing in Portugal,” states Veronica Cotdemiey of Citizenship Invest.
Greece
The real estate investment threshold to acquire residency for Greece is €250,000, making it the cheapest real estate residency visa scheme in Europe. You can apply for residency in four months and citizenship after seven years.
Spain
The real estate investment threshold to acquire residency for Spain is €500,000. You can apply for permanent residency after five years and citizenship after 10 years. It is not necessary to live in Spain to retain and renew the residency visa permit.
Cyprus
Cyprus offers the quickest route to citizenship of a European country in only six months. An investment of €2m in real estate is required, making it the highest priced programme in Europe.
Malta
The Malta citizenship by investment programme is lengthy and investors are required to contribute sums as donations to the Maltese government. The applicant must either contribute at least €650,000 to the National Development & Social Fund. Spouses and children are required to contribute €25,000; unmarried children between 18 and 25 and dependent parents must contribute €50,000 each.
The second step is to make an investment in property of at least €350,000 or enter a property rental contract for at least €16,000 per annum for five years. The third step is to invest at least €150,000 in bonds or shares approved by the Maltese government to be kept for at least five years.
Candidates must commit to a minimum physical presence in Malta before citizenship is granted. While you get residency in two months, you can apply for citizenship after a year.
Egypt
A one-year residency permit can be bought if you purchase property in Egypt worth $100,000. A three-year residency is available for those who invest $200,000 in property, and five years for those who purchase property worth $400,000.
In the village of Mevagissey in southwest England the housing stock has doubled in the last century while the number of residents is half the historic high. The village's Neighbourhood Development Plan states that 26% of homes are holiday retreats. Prices are high, averaging around £300,000, £50,000 more than the Cornish average of £250,000. The local average wage is £15,458.
A MINECRAFT MOVIE
Director: Jared Hess
Starring: Jack Black, Jennifer Coolidge, Jason Momoa
The internal combustion engine is facing a watershed moment – major manufacturer Volvo is to stop producing petroleum-powered vehicles by 2021 and countries in Europe, including the UK, have vowed to ban their sale before 2040. The National takes a look at the story of one of the most successful technologies of the last 100 years and how it has impacted life in the UAE.
