Islam at the Louvre

Paris

The roof of the Louvre’s new Islamic art department undulates like golden fabric gently lifted by the wind—a feat, considering it is made of steel and glass and weighs almost 150 tons. Filling a neoclassical courtyard, the addition that opened last fall tripled the space devoted to Islamic art and more than doubled the number of objects on view to almost 3,000, or about a sixth of the museum’s works from the Islamic world.

In contrast to the spectacular architecture by Mario Bellini and Rudy Ricciotti, the installation is understated, an elegant version of open-storage: objects grouped in long glass cases; larger pieces—carved steles, inlaid doors, stone latticed windows—clustered on low pedestals; and architectural fragments affixed to partitions. The flooring is dark, the passageways plain and the lighting democratic, giving shards of earthenware as much attention as finely woven rugs from Iran, a jewel-encrusted dagger from Mughal India or 14th-century enameled blown-glass lamps from Egypt and Syria that are about as close to numinous as objects can get.

New York Museum Galleries Refocus Gaze on Islamic Art

NEW YORK - Fifteen renovated galleries offer fresh perspective on the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s collection of more than 12,000 Islamic works of art spanning 13 centuries and an area ranging from Spain to India.

About 1,200 pieces of art will be on view at any one time with displays of textiles and works on paper changing frequently due to the sensitivity of these materials to light.

A re-thinking of the Islamic art collection, developed alongside the museum’s years-long renovation project, led to the new galleries being named to reflect the range of nations and empires that produced the art.

While the collection was once succinctly termed Islamic Art, the museum now describes the works inhabiting the galleries as “Art of the Arab Lands, Turkey, Iran, Central Asia, and Later South Asia.”

The new emphasis on geography grew out of the view that while religion unifies the collection, region diversifies it.

FULL ARTICLE FROM THE MONTREAL GAZETTE