Museological lunch: On contemporary art from the Middle East

Contemporary art, contemporary challenges: museums and the Middle East

In recent decades, a number of museums in Europe and North America have started to collect contemporary art from the Middle East. Notable examples are the British Museum, Tate Modern, the Victoria & Albert Museum and LACMA, but also a number of smaller ethnographic museums like the Tropenmuseum.

Colonial collections
This presentation looks in particular at the challenges for ethnographic museums and cultural history museums (including so-called universal museums) when they take such steps. These museums typically hold large collections of art and material culture of the pre-modern Middle East that were collected in colonial times and are exhibited today under the heading of Islamic art or ethnographica.

Contemporary art
With the turn to contemporary art museums aim to make a connection to the present, which is in turn triggered by a public demand – coming from museum audiences or sponsors – to engage with the world around them. It allows the museum to assume an educational role in providing models for cultural understanding in multicultural societies or informing the public about events currently taking place in the Middle East.

Middle Eastern culture and the right of self-representation
Presenting and collecting contemporary art enables museums to provide a platform for diverse views, including voices from the Middle East itself. For this reason, the inclusion of contemporary art is often considered to be one of the more constructive approaches for effecting change in museums with collections of colonial origin.

However, if it does not coincide with a revision of the paradigms that underpin these museums it could also result in a reaffirmation of existing boundaries. Through examples of exhibitions and art works this presentation illustrates how museums can get caught up in the paradoxical paradigms of Islamic art and the (re)presentation of Middle Eastern culture.

Mirjam Shatanawi is curator of the Middle Eastern and North African collections at the Tropenmuseum in Amsterdam for which she has curated several exhibitions, including Urban Islam (2004), Inside Iran (2006) and Palestine 1948 (2008). Trained in Arabic Studies (University of Amsterdam) and African/Asian History (School of Oriental and African Studies, London) and with previous work experience as a field anthropologist, her curatorial and academic practice intends to connect these fields. She recently published Islam in beeld (Amsterdam: SUN, 2009), an analysis of the history of the Tropenmuseum’s Islamic collections.

We serve coffee, tea and cake. All are welcome.

Organisers: Brita Brenna, Torild Gjesvik, Anne-Sofie Hjemdahl.

 

Khosrow Hassanzadeh: Reyhan
2004
Silkscreen and acrylic on canvas
200 x 320 cm
Collection KIT Tropenmuseum

Reyhan Hassanzadeh
Nationality: Iranian
Religion: Muslim
Age: 64
Profession: Housewife
Distinctive Traits:
Scars on neck from wolfbite during childhood.
Personal History:
Has been on several pilgrimages to Syria, Karbalah and Mecca. Lives in Tehran. Has four children.