ABU DHABI: Indian art has taken centre stage at Louvre Abu Dhabi, the Arab world’s largest art museum, with highlights such as a Chola-era bronze idol of Jina and Sayed Haider Raza‘s Bindu. Since its opening in 2017, the museum has showcased how trade and artistic exchanges connected India with the rest of the world.
Ann Sasidharan, operations team leader at the museum, said India’s influence spans centuries. “During the 1500s, trade routes through India shaped global navigation and art. Even under East India Company rule, Indian artists preserved their originality,” she told TOI.
She said the collection illustrates India’s role in the diffusion of religious art, particularly between 5th and 15th centuries. Sculptures like Buddha heads from Kushan Empire (100-300 CE), which included parts of present-day Pakistan, and copper tribhanga Buddhas from Malla dynasty, present-day Nepal, sit alongside Chinese depictions of Guanyin from Northern Song Dynasty, highlighting a shared spiritual heritage.
With over 1,000 artworks from across the globe, Louvre Abu Dhabi attracted 1.2 million visitors in 2023, and Indians were among the top three international audiences. The museum’s focus on cross-cultural understanding is also bringing contemporary Indian culture into the spotlight, exemplified by last year’s exhibition ‘Bollywood Superstars: A Short Story of Indian Cinema’.
(The writer was in Abu Dhabi on invitation from its Department of Culture and Tourism)
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