The Center Pompidou and Saudi Arabia have signed a partnership agreement for the creation of a future museum of contemporary art dedicated to artists from the Arab world in Al-Ula, in the north-west of the kingdom, a sign of global warming diplomatic relations between the two countries, we learned on Wednesday from the Parisian museum.
The museum has also confirmed that it plans to open a branch in 2025 in Seoul, a file on which it should communicate in more detail soon.
The agreement between the Center Pompidou, one of the largest museums of modern and contemporary art in the world, and Saudi Arabia, was signed last weekend by Laurent Le Bon, president of the French museum, and Nora Aldabal, director of artistic and cultural programming at the Royal Commission, in the presence of the Saudi Minister of Culture, Prince Badr bin Farhan Al Saud, and his French counterpart Rima Abdul Malak, said a press release from the museum.
The terms, including financial, of the partnership have not yet been disclosed.
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Opening planned for 2027-2028
The agreement aims to develop a large-scale museum project dedicated to artists from the Arab world, which is scheduled to open in 2027-2028 at the Al-Ula site.
The Center Pompidou “
will provide its scientific and technical expertise in the training of staff, particularly in terms of conservation, collection management and mediation
”, according to the press release.
"
He may also intervene in support of the organization of cultural and event programming
", adds the text.
The Ministry of Culture confirmed to AFP that the two parties had three months to determine financial compensation.
At the end of 2019, recalls the newspaper
Le Monde
, Laurent Le Bon, then director of the Picasso Museum, had been part of the delegation of the Minister of Culture at the time, Franck Riester, “the only
French politician in office to go to Al- Ula one year after the assassination of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi
”.