Museums Embrace Islamic Art [Art News]

Museums around the world are showcasing Islamic art in an effort to promote understanding and engage immigrant communities by Sarah H. Bayliss [Art News]

In July 2005 the Louvre announced that it had received one of the largest gifts in its history. The €17 million ($26.8 million) donation from Prince al-Waleed bin Talal bin Abdulaziz al-Saud, a grandson of the founder of Saudi Arabia, supports the construction of a €62.2 million ($98.2 million), 260,000-square-foot wing for Islamic art, which will quadruple the display space for the museum’s 10,000 Islamic objects. Other contributors include the late emir of Kuwait and the sultan of Oman, who each gave €5 million ($7.9 million).

The new wing, designed by Mario Bellini and Rudy Ricciotti and scheduled to open in 2010, will have a symbolic resonance as well as a practical function. According to Prince al-Waleed, the addition, which will also display objects from the adjacent Museum of Decorative Arts, has the potential to “assist in the understanding of the true meaning of Islam, a religion of humanity, forgiveness, and acceptance of other cultures.” Among the masterpieces in the collection are a 14th-century bronze platter created for the sultan of Yemen and a tenth-century ivory box from Córdoba, Spain.

The Louvre is just one of many cultural institutions around the world that are spotlighting their Islamic holdings. Museum officials say that in an era when many people know little about Islam beyond the struggle against the Taliban and Islamic extremism, there is a pressing need to present the full richness of Islamic culture. Institutions in the West, from the Detroit Institute of Arts to the David Collection in Copenhagen, home to the largest Islamic collection in Scandinavia, are in the midst of refurbishing their Islamic galleries and updating their educational components. The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, recently launched a $35 million campaign to build an entirely new Islamic collection.

Islamic art is a sweeping category that encompasses a vast range of objects created in regions as diverse as Spain, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and North Africa since the establishment and spread of Islam in the seventh century. At the height of its influence, Islam covered a vast area of the globe over a millennium, observes Philippe de Montebello, director of the Met, which will reinstall its 12,000 Islamic objects as part of its master plan. A highlight of the renovated galleries will be the lavishly decorated Nur al-Din Room from an 18th-century house in Damascus. De Montebello emphasizes, however, that the renovation was not politically inspired.