As you enter Gallery 1 of Manarat Al Saadiyat, you face a description of the future Louvre Abu Dhabi, scheduled to open in 2015. Describing the future museum collection, it reads, “The future museum shall not, in any way, be a copy of the Louvre in Paris; instead, it will be an original institution offering its own interpretation of a universal museum, reflecting its own era and the local traditions of the United Arab Emirates.”

This universalist idea of art, culture and heritage immediately reveals itself in stark contrasts — in the first section, a Cypriot “idol” from the early bronze age sits beside a Central Asian Bactrian “Princess,” dating back to the third millennium B.C.E. Across from these is a 1960s Yves Klein painting of a female shape in his famous blue hue. Together, these pieces represent three separate forms of art, from three disparate time periods and three distinct geographies. Third-culture art.

130 works of the 460 total collected by the museum are on display in the exhibition, ranging from objects from antiquity and the ancient world to more recent pieces of modern art.

The themes of the exhibit revolve around contrasts and comparisons; a Roman-era marble statue from Italy is set alongside a standing Bodhisattva from Pakistan. A Buddha head from Northern China sits with an Indian twin. A Yemeni Pentateuch written in Hebrew from the early 19th century lies in the same case as a 13th-century Qur’an and a 14th-century Christian diptych, a nod to the Abrahamic faiths.

The exhibition explores the so-called East-West divide, with these two poles representing non-European and European traditions respectively. Works are shown both in contrast to, as well as in conversation with, distant civilizations. In one room, the Paintings of Corot, Caillebotte, Manet, Gauguin and Picasso line the walls; just opposite are 18th century watercolor paintings from the Indian subcontinent. One room over, an octagonal box with pearl inlay from the Chinese Tang dynasty sparkles in its casing.

Yet despite the affirmed distance of the future Emirati Louvre and its Parisian counterpart, the Birth of the Museum exhibition revealed interesting nuances of a new institution attached to an older identity. For NYUAD students, this exhibition portraying an institution that is reinventing itself at a crossroads may prove to be familiar.