Arts & International Affairs: Volume 2, Issue 1 | Page 132

response from museum lawyers was swift and unequivocal: cease production
of the noodle or prepare to be sued.”
The commercial aspects of MNCs are not the only attributes that resonate
in a conversation about museum satellites. Just as Walmart, Starbucks,
and McDonalds have been criticized for offering a cookie cutter product
that is identical in every incarnation and that threatens to homogenize the
broader landscape in their respective sectors, so does the Guggenheim
especially come in for criticism as a cultural imperialist force. Not just
the commercialization of art, which the Louvre Abu Dhabi also arguably
represents, but the projection of a museum model that threatens the sociocultural
distinctiveness of the communities where they locate, is part of the
concern raised especially about Guggenheim hewing too closely to MNC
practices.
Furthermore, the Guggenheim and the Louvre have been embroiled in
controversy about worker’s conditions in the Emirates. In many ways, it
evokes the campaign aimed at MNCs to stop using sweatshop labour. In ����,
Human Rights Watch published a report entitled, “The Island of Happiness’:
Exploitation of Migrant Workers on Saadiyat Island, Abu Dhabi.” The report
chronicles worker abuse in the construction projects, notably “employeepaid
recruiting fees; visas controlled by employers; very low wages often far
below what was promised workers in their home countries; and restrictions
on organizing and no real access to legal remedies” (HRW ����:�). These
conditions are in addition to long hours in extreme heat. Many of these
practices are apparently illegal in the Emirates, yet the laws are not enforced
(HRW ����:�). The organization called upon the Guggenheim and Louvre
foundations, New York University, and the international architectural firms
active in Abu Dhabi to obtain contractual guarantees from their partners
responsible for constructing their facilities in Abu Dhabi to uphold worker
rights (HRW ����:�).
All of this seems quite persuasive in underlining the similarities between
MNCs and museums. Still, we must stop short of saying that the museum is
now an MNC. Museums are not earning money for their shareholders, but
rather to fund operations. Museums retain a distinct mission to conserve
and exhibit art and to educate the public about it. MNC-like attributes are
on display across the museum sample to varying degrees, however perhaps
the Guggenheim (and to a certain degree, the Louvre in Abu Dhabi) evokes
the MNC more than the Hermitage. Museums are borrowing from the MNC
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