Museums, Great Names, and Billions: How Authoritarian States Buy Prestige

For two decades, the Gulf states have been investing in culture. They buy masterpieces, finance renovations of Western museums, license the most recognizable brands, and build their own institutions designed by the greatest names in global architecture. Art has become a tool of foreign policy.

The reason authoritarian states buy prestige is obvious. The more interesting question is this: why does the West sell it?

First They Bought Brands. Now They Build Their Own

Researchers of the global art market describe the development of Gulf cultural diplomacy as a two-stage process. The first stage, lasting from the beginning of the 21st century to the mid-2020s, involved the import of reputation. States in the region paid for the prestige of Western museums, financed renovations, and bought access to the world’s most recognizable cultural brands.

Today, the strategy looks different. The goal is no longer to import authority from Europe or the United States, but to build institutions that will themselves become obligatory points on the global art map.

The same mechanism connects both stages. Artwashing means using culture to build international credibility and soften political controversies. The term emerged in urban sociology, where it described developers’ strategies for making gentrification feel more acceptable through art galleries. Today, the stakes are higher: a state’s position in the Western world.

The Louvre Also Has Its Price

The most precisely documented example of the first stage remains Louvre Abu Dhabi. In 2007, France and the United Arab Emirates signed an agreement that the French Senate valued at nearly one billion euros. The right to use the name “Louvre” alone cost Abu Dhabi 400 million euros. Further hundreds of millions went to loans of artworks, advisory services, and cooperation with French museums. In 2021, the agreement was extended for another decade.

Louvre Abu Dhabi is not a branch of the Paris museum. It is a separate institution that bought a brand, access to collections, and expert knowledge. One researcher at the Center for French and Francophone Studies noted that France earned enormous money from the transaction while weakening the uniqueness of its own brand.

Both sides saw the agreement as beneficial: Abu Dhabi bought prestige, while France strengthened its position in the region. It is easy, then, to tell this story as an example of an authoritarian state buying Western splendor. It is harder to notice that from the beginning, someone sat on the other side of the table willing to sell that splendor.

The Greatest Architects Are Building a New Power

Saadiyat Island cannot be compared with any other place in the world. In just over a decade, a complex of institutions has risen there, designed by Jean Nouvel, Norman Foster, Frank Gehry, and the Mecanoo studio.

Since 2021, Abu Dhabi has allocated 6 billion dollars to cultural development. Since the launch of Vision 2030, Saudi Arabia has invested more than 21.6 billion dollars. New museums, art schools, and exhibition centers are being built, but partnerships with prestigious Western institutions matter just as much.

Riyadh supported the renovation of the Centre Pompidou and works with the Smithsonian Institution on the preservation of the ancient city of Dadan. The scale of this attraction also appears in the appointment of Hartwig Fischer, the former director of the British Museum, as founding director of the Museum of World Cultures in Riyadh. This is not a single museum project. It is the construction of an entire ecosystem of prestige.

The Global Art Market Is No Longer Neutral

At the beginning of February 2026, Doha hosted the first edition of Art Basel Qatar: the debut of one of the most recognizable brands in the global art market in the Gulf. Representatives of museums, foundations, galleries, and private collections from around the world gathered at an event that resembled a museum festival more than a conventional art fair.

Qatar Sports Investments and QC+, entities directly connected to the Qatari state, co-finance Art Basel Qatar. Its artistic director, Wael Shawky, stressed that he was not creating an art market, but a cultural platform.

The curatorial choices also proved revealing. Several galleries showed works referring to the war in Gaza, including a series by Marlene Dumas that used photographs from Israel’s 2008–2009 military operation. For Art Basel, this marked a clear break with its previous practice of avoiding explicitly political exhibitions.

Now They Want to Distribute Prestige Themselves

Saudi Arabia has already moved beyond the first stage of this strategy. Riyadh University of Arts, the first arts university in the kingdom’s history, is being established in Riyadh. The Diriyah Contemporary Art Biennale has completed its third edition and increasingly functions as a brand in its own right. The Saudi Museum of Contemporary Art continues to develop its activity in the JAX district.

Riyadh’s ambition is no longer to promote itself through Western intermediaries, but to create a place to which curators, collectors, and museum directors from Europe and the United States will travel. Aya Al-Bakree, CEO of the Diriyah Biennale Foundation, has stated the goal openly: to build the kingdom’s own cultural infrastructure, capable of competing with the world’s leading centers.

A dozen or so years ago, the Gulf states bought other people’s prestige. Now they want to produce their own.

Who Sells Credibility to Regimes?

The question least often asked in the debate about artwashing is this: what does the West gain? European and American cultural institutions have been operating for years under pressure from shrinking public funds. Museum maintenance costs rise, renovations get postponed, and more and more projects depend on outside financing. Petrodollars filled that gap.

In its essay “Why Artwashing Is a Dirty Word,” the Financial Times put forward an uncomfortable thesis: culture has become a good that regimes want to buy, while Western institutions are increasingly willing to sell it. The debate about artwashing usually focuses on the intentions of sponsors. It less often asks about the motives of those who accept their money.

This question also concerns Poland. Public cultural institutions have operated for years under the pressure of limited budgets. If an offer came from Riyadh or Doha to finance a major museum investment in exchange for long-term cooperation, how many directors would truly say no?

Culture and Soft Power: The Museum Works Like an Embassy

The towers of the Zayed National Museum were designed to resemble falcon wings, one of the most important symbols of Emirati identity. The building cost 680 million dollars and, from the beginning, was meant to be more than a museum: a monument to state ambition, one that Western cultural institutions helped raise.

The Louvre lent its name. Art Basel opened the door to the global market. The Centre Pompidou brought its own prestige. The Smithsonian Institution helps build Saudi heritage infrastructure. Beside the Zayed National Museum stands the British Museum, as a partner in developing exhibitions, not in the politics of Riyadh. Yet the line between one and the other grows harder to maintain.

Each of these institutions had its own economic calculation. Together, however, they did something far more valuable than sell licenses or advice: they helped create the credibility of authoritarian states.

The new museums of the Middle East are now diplomatic posts built from concrete, glass, and borrowed prestige. Their greatest strength lies in the fact that Western institutions people already trust have legitimized them. That is why artwashing works so well: it does not ask art to lie. It asks art to make power look civilized.

Read this article in Polish: Muzea, wielkie nazwiska i miliardy. Tak dyktatury kupują prestiż