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Sunday's opening comes as several museums worldwide are
broadening their collections. New York's Metropolitan Museum of
Art is working on a suite of Islamic art galleries and The David
Collection in Copenhagen is preparing to close its gallery for a
reinstallation. The Louvre in Paris and the Victoria and Albert
Museum in London also boast of major renovations to their
collections. And Egyptian officials plan to reopen Cairo's
Museum of Islamic Art.
In Detroit, the gallery of about 170 works of art from the
Mediterranean region, the Middle East, Central Asia and India
was several years in the making. It was to be part of the
museum's $158 million makeover completed in 2007 but required
extra time and money.
The gallery, with its pointed arches, narrow columns and soft
lighting, give the collection a solemn yet inviting feel. Themes
spanning 1,500 years include ``Silk Road Inspirations,'' whose
works reveal the reach of the Islamic world and its role linking
East and West; and ``Sacred Writings of the Islamic World,''
which includes Christian and Jewish manuscripts from the Islamic
world.
Among the gallery's treasures: one of the largest-known Ottoman
mosque candlesticks from about 1500; an elevated giant
cut-velvet summer floor covering made between 1650 and 1700 in
Turkey, believed to be the largest of its kind; and a
15th-century leather-bound Quran, whose gold-flecked paper was
given by the Ming emperor of China to Timur, one of the Mongol
conquerors of the Middle East.
Heather Ecker,
the museum's Islamic art curator, described it as the ``most
spectacular and important piece in the collection'' and said
it's one of four surviving manuscripts and the only one in the
U.S.
The new gallery also seeks to ``engage the public by telling the
stories that the works of art can tell about themselves,'' she
said.
The gallery's completion follows an ambitious, in-house
archaeology project. A cut-tile mosaic panel hanging above the
Quran dating back to 15th century Iran was found in storage, and
the mosque candlestick also was stored, covered in green wax and
misdated to the 18th century. Both have been at the museum since
the 1920s.
Ecker says interest in Islamic art has risen since the Sept. 11
terrorist attacks. Before then, it was largely kept on the
sidelines or in a supporting role to European and American art.
``I think there's a wish to understand and I think much more
energy is being dedicated to understanding what the Islamic
world is, its languages, its cultures and its people,'' she
said.
Beal said a new generation of museum directors are pushing to
abandon geographical or cultural hierarchies and develop
collections that ``connect with people.''
Detroit's effort has come with criticisms. Most disturbing to
Beal was a letter from a member who asked why the museum was
``promoting godless Islam.''
``Nobody has said, 'Why are you showing Native American art?'
I've never had that question in my whole career,'' he said.
Ecker said it's impossible to separate the museum's work from
those outside tensions, but it can help dispel ignorance.
``When a museum has a collection as we do, we do feel a
responsibility to provide not only a beautiful experience ...
but also an educational experience, because I think there's a
lot of ignorance,'' she said. ``Not only among non-Muslims, but
a lot of Muslims don't have a good understanding of the 1,500
years of Islamic history.''
On the Net: The David Collection:
http://www.davidmus.dk/en
Detroit Institute of Arts:
http://www.dia.org/
Metropolitan Museum of Art:
http://www.metmuseum.org/
Museum of Islamic Art, Qatar:
http://www.mia.org.qa/english
The Louvre:
http://www.louvre.fr/llv/commun/home.jsp
Victoria and Albert Museum:
http://www.vam.ac.uk/
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