Laurent Le Bon, president of the Pompidou Center in Paris, on March 14 signed an agreement with the Royal Commission for AlUla (RCU) to establish a huge branch of the contemporary art museum in the fast-growing AlUla region of Saudi Arabia. The outpost will be the Pompidou's room, whose tendrils already reach Metz, France; Malaga, Spain; and Shanghai. The new institution will focus on the art of South East Asia, North Africa and South Asia, with an emphasis on Land art and 21st century digital art. In addition, RCU will commission immersive installations and public artworks from Arab and international artists. The Pompidou in a statement states that it will “contribute with its scientific and technical knowledge in the training of staff, namely in the areas of conservation, management of collections and mediation. It can also support the organization of cultural programming and events.”
The proposed project is the latest in a series of artistic initiatives under a 2018 agreement between the French government of Emanuel Macron and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, with the aim of establishing AlUla - a desert region in northwest Saudi Arabia along the historic Silk Road and Incense Road and home to the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Hegra - as a cultural and tourist centre. That deal – which Macron folded after what the UN Human Rights Watch deemed the state-sanctioned killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul – has already borne fruit in the form of the Paris-based agency Afalula, which puts “French know-how” at the service of AlUla's development.
The cultural deal with France is part of a broader initiative known as Vision 2030, which Bin Salman launched in an attempt to diversify the Saudi economy away from oil and establish a more progressive cultural profile for the country. The initiative is seen by some as an attempt by the Saudi government to "wash" its history of human rights abuses.