In addition to overseeing the five existing Guggenheim outposts (New York, Las Vegas, Venice, Bilbao and Berlin), Thomas Krens (director of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation) has spent much of the year talking up plans for the latest branch of the great art brand in Abu Dhabi. Due to be designed by Krens favourite Frank Gehry, the museum will cost between $200 and $400 million, and, alongside a branch of the Louvre, forms a key part of the Emirate’s attempt to recreate itself as a cultural Xanadu. Much of Krens’s influence is based on the success of the other Gehry-designed Guggenheim in Bilbao (since opening in 1997 it has drawn in nine million visitors, helped create 4,200 new jobs a year, and contributed $2 billion to Spain’s GDP). ‘Business moguls, governors, mayors – they all come through the Guggenheim on a regular basis. Bilbao has had such an enormous impact,’ said Krens in a recent interview, adding fuel to the fires of those critics (of which there are legion) who think that business is mostly what Krens is now about. But perhaps this is merely the most obvious symptom of the way art institutions are going. Krens also claims that over the last three years 130 cities have made requests for Guggenheimification.