Art Capital

Beth Derderian's Art Capital examines the decade-long process of announcing, building, and opening the Louvre Abu Dhabi to trace how market forces and efforts at inclusivity reshape museums.

Drawing on ethnographic research with artists, curators, museum staff, gallerists, and educators, the book analyzes how the UAE art world became a laboratory for new logics of cultural, social, and economic capital.

Derderian shows how museum franchising and large-scale cultural projects produce preemptive erasures that depoliticize difference for publics while building diplomatic and economic infrastructures.

The book situates the Louvre Abu Dhabi within broader regional developments—art fairs, biennials, and cultural institutions—and explores impacts on artistic careers and heritage politics.

It argues that such projects reflect state aspirations, market entanglements, and shifting notions of what counts as 'good art' in the twenty-first century.