3.1 Déja-vu
The cyclical sensationalization of governmental patronage of culture in Saudi Arabia is not new. Interest in the role of the government in building and promoting a cultural sector always was a point of intrigue in an otherwise inaccessible country, and a largely misunderstood culture. While marveling at the government’s patronage of archeology, museums, and tourism at the scale it purports to undertake is not undue. These reports often omit the substantive work undertaken by virtue of government patronage and its achievements up until the point the reporters or writers took interest in the subject.
Every few years, particularly regarding cultural institutions that structurally resemble Western art and cultural institutions, marvel at the advances made in Saudi Arabia is reported on in popular sources through a lens of intrigue that can be, at best, described as pleasant surprise. As early as 1979, the opening of the Museum of Archeology and Ethnography in Riyadh was seen as “a striking review of the kingdom's history and, perhaps more important, a tangible demonstration of the government's efforts to protect its past as it builds its future.”[1]
That same year, a newspaper article published by the New York Times on the advancements made by the Department of Antiquities and Museums highlighted the allotment of close to a Billion Dollars to study and preserve relics of Saudi Arabia’s heritage.[2] The article provides no context on the undertakings of the Department and the role of government patronage in the preservation of culture and heritage other than the size of the financial endowment at its disposal.
Not long after, in 1985, in the realm of museum management, a more nuanced approach to understanding the museum landscape of the Arab world began to take hold. In an attempt to understand the ruptures in maintaining museum institutions under state patronage, even shortly after grand museum project plans are drawn, Suhail Bisharat offers a nuanced reason for understanding the sensitivity of cultural institutions to the business cycle, and governments tend to be able to accommodate these changes, while institutions often do not.[3] Bisharat explains that what characterizes “ museums in the region is good intentions and ideas at the inception, but a lack of appreciation as to the costs of continuity and the need for training staff in curatorial disciplines, as well as for buildings designed for the conservation of objects.”[4] The issue that
Something of a halt in this inquisition into Saudi Arabia’s cultural institutions and archeological heritage takes place between the early 2000s and the 2010s. However, within the course of three years, specifically between 2011 and 2014, claims of a “Fresh Arab Identity” being brought about in Gulf States, including Saudi Arabia, heralded via the development of museums, catches light again.[5] Whereas in other reports, the development of museums is seen as an unexpected, but extraordinary, development in how Gulf states were choosing to continue to “Exploit[ing] their highly profitable mineral and oil resources” through the help of international institutions such as ICOM and the UNESCO.[6] While the development of such strategic imperatives are significant, they produce a reductive image on the historical attempts on the part of the governments to get such institutions off the ground, and the gargantuan individual efforts that it took from highly skilled and invested individuals, nationals of these countries as well as foreign collaborators in these endeavors.
In 2014, much like earlier reports, interest in the Saudi government’s scale of cultural patronage was renewed with reports of the then newly minted Saudi Commission for Tourism and Antiquities’ (SCTA) undertakings. Again, the financial largess at the Commission’s disposal is the point of intrigue for external observers.[7] Yet again, between 2015 and 2018, another rupture takes place in the continuity of publicly available information on the Saudi government’s patronage of cultural heritage and museums. While this rupture was abridged by the launch of Vision 2030 in 2016, this last rupture was followed by an intense, renewed, and continuing interest to define how governmental patronage of culture – and specifically museums – is presently understood.
Barry Reynolds, “A Walk Through History,” AramcoWorld, April 1979, https://archive.aramcoworld.com/issue/197902/a.walk.through.history.htm. ↑
Eric Pace, “SAUDIS ALLOT BILLION TO DIG UP THEIR PAST,” The New York Times, October 7, 1979, sec. Archives, https://www.nytimes.com/1979/10/07/archives/saudis-allot-billion-to-dig-up-their-past-vast-archeological.html. ↑
Suhail Bisharat, “Museums, Collections and Collecting in the Arab World: Some Reflections on Today,” International Journal of Museum Management and Curatorship 4, no. 3 (September 1, 1985): 279–87, https://doi.org/10.1016/0260-4779(85)90008-1. ↑
Ibid. ↑
Nicolai Ouroussoff, “Building Museums, and a Fresh Arab Identity,” The New York Times, November 26, 2010. ↑
Mounir Bouchenaki, “The Extraordinary Development of Museums in the Gulf States,” Museum International 63, no. 3–4 (September 1, 2011): 93–103, https://doi.org/10.1111/muse.12010. ↑
Catherine Milner, “The Government of Saudi Arabia to Spend $1.7bn on Building 230 Museums,” The Art Newspaper - International Art News and Events, April 30, 2014, https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2014/05/01/the-government-of-saudi-arabia-to-spend-dollar17bn-on-building-230-museums. ↑