Tag Archives: city marketing

Art and Soft Power in the Gulf

Posted on by
Reply

Article published in Issue #47 of Afkar / Ideas published in October 2015 by the European Institute of the Mediterranean in Barcelona / French version / Spanish version

Ahmad Angawi: Ottoman Map of Mecca (detail), 2012

Ahmad Angawi: Ottoman Map of Mecca (detail), 2012

Art and Soft Power in the Gulf

Recently, there has been much news and debate about how the Gulf States are acquiring the icons of global culture, such as famous paintings, works by star artists, and even whole museums. This is seen as the exercise of ‘soft power’, defined by Joseph Nye as ‘the ability to get what you want through attraction, rather than coercion or payments’. One may wonder then, which objectives direct the Gulf’s investments in art? And, are they being achieved? Continue reading →

A visit to the National Museum of Riyadh

Posted on by
Reply

The National Museum of Riyadh is a very interesting museum designed by the Canadian architect Raymond Moriyama (figs 1 & 2). It was inaugurated in 1999. It is located on the grounds of the Murabba Palace that was built by King Abdul Aziz in 1936/37 north of what was then Riyadh, a small and congested walled city. Many of the buildings of this palatial complex that fell into disuse in the early 1950s have been beautifully restored, and together with the gardens that surround them they form one of the only large public spaces in Riyadh (figs 3 & 4). Many people come here to stroll, picnic and watch other passers-by. Continue reading →

City Branding vs Artistic Freedom

Posted on by
Reply

The prospect of having performance artists dressed up like Disney’s Snow White parading with toy guns in the city hall caused quite a stir in The Hague over the last weeks. It is not that the Dutch are easily scandalized – they are rather hardened in matters of artistic provocation – but the consistency in the branding of a city such as the The Hague is becoming a more important principle than artistic freedom. The Hague likes to present itself as the international capital of peace and justice, and to start with, the officials in charge of city marketing didn’t like the theme chosen by Todaysart festival 2009, “The Hague City of Conflict”. Continue reading →