The Islamic Art section at the Metropolitan Museum of Art opened a little over two years ago (well after I had left New York) and so it wasn’t until this week that I finally got a chance to see it. Everyone had been hearing about it for years before the museum had even begun construction on the galleries, like a mythic second coming. I suppose one didn’t have a choice because for years when you walked into the Met to see Islamic Art, they led you to a forgotten little corridor with five pots on display, muttering apologetically about how it was all going to change “soon” and how utterly, indescribably beautiful the new spaced would be. All of this coincided with a decade-long (and counting) acute interest in what made Muslims, umm, tick.
Some years ago, a month or so before I was to leave New York, I went with a group of people to the unopened and as-yet-unfinished rooms slated to become the new, well-funded, post-9/11 Islamic Art section. There was a flurry of builders and plumes of dust on the pale stone floors. Each gallery, I was told, had stone imported from the region from which its objects originated; Egyptian stone, Iranian marble, etc. It was a lovely idea, and I had imagined giant marble archways framing the bare doors as you wandered from one storied age and into another, burdened by the weight of Ottoman camp.
This was not to be. The actual Islamic section is a collection of bare, sparse rooms occasionally including a surprising little courtyard with Moroccan tiles. Not so much camp as campsite.
[quote]I'm guessing the Met didn't have the same amount of money for the Islamic wing as they did for, say, the Greek and Roman sections[/quote]
They did have this one room that was an Ottoman-era lounge recreated in perfect detail (complete with fake daylight) but other than a ceiling of a recessed arch elsewhere in the gallery, that was about it in terms of decorated spaces. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that I think you have to vomit over a room in gold for it to look interesting. It’s just that I had expected more, mainly because I think (and I’ll assume you agree) that works of Islamic art, with is minute decorative swirls and intense geometric scribbles, can look spectacular when crowded together. Why not use that strength and go nuts with the galleries? Why not have a heavily decorated space, so you can really feel the opulence?
The short answer is funding. I’m guessing the Met didn’t have the same amount of money for the Islamic wing as they did for, say, the Greek and Roman sections. The Greek section feels like you’ve walked into the frisking pantheon of Gods, that’s how beautiful it is. The long answer is that it isn’t the Met’s responsibility to be the center of Islamic art. The Louvre redid their galleries and they weren’t all that either, though there was more money involved in part because they are opening in Abu Dhabi soon. The Doris Duke Foundation in Hawaii (of all places) used to have one for the largest collections of Islamic art in the world, but I think Doha took that title. So I guess it’s now up to Doha to build a proper museum.
The best part of the galleries is the way they have displayed the Mughal miniatures. When I had gone to visit the unfinished site, the curator showing us around gave us a little treat in the form of a sit down with some of the miniatures. We entered a small side room of the Met and spread out on the table were a selection of beautiful, heart-breakingly detailed miniatures. We wore gloves and delicately passed them around the table, aware even then that we were being granted a privilege incomparable to most things in today’s world.
It occurred to me then how necessary proximity is to understanding the miniature. Always intended to be read at hand level, the images require you to be physically close to them, not something a museum is going to encourage you to do. The Met solved this by mounting its miniatures on displays and having chairs in front of each one. This means you really get to see every glint of gold and flicker of paint. My distaste for the galleries aside, the objects therein are milestones from history. I spent four hours staring at just one room, so I do encourage you to see it. Even if not in New York, you can see details from the collection online, and in truth it’s online galleries from the world’s museums that keep me grounded when I’m in Pakistan.
I haven’t been thinking much about the Homeland, not gonna lie. Thankfully, unlike the beginning of the summer with our stonings and bombings and dronings (o my!), Pakistan’s name has been out of the World News for a bit. It’s been replaced with an anti-Israeli uproar and awe at the idea that Putin shot down a Malaysian Airlines airplane over Ukraine.
That’s why I love museums. You can see the worst of us on the news cycle, every week. Museums help us remember the best.
Write to thekantawala@gmail.com
Some years ago, a month or so before I was to leave New York, I went with a group of people to the unopened and as-yet-unfinished rooms slated to become the new, well-funded, post-9/11 Islamic Art section. There was a flurry of builders and plumes of dust on the pale stone floors. Each gallery, I was told, had stone imported from the region from which its objects originated; Egyptian stone, Iranian marble, etc. It was a lovely idea, and I had imagined giant marble archways framing the bare doors as you wandered from one storied age and into another, burdened by the weight of Ottoman camp.
This was not to be. The actual Islamic section is a collection of bare, sparse rooms occasionally including a surprising little courtyard with Moroccan tiles. Not so much camp as campsite.
[quote]I'm guessing the Met didn't have the same amount of money for the Islamic wing as they did for, say, the Greek and Roman sections[/quote]
They did have this one room that was an Ottoman-era lounge recreated in perfect detail (complete with fake daylight) but other than a ceiling of a recessed arch elsewhere in the gallery, that was about it in terms of decorated spaces. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that I think you have to vomit over a room in gold for it to look interesting. It’s just that I had expected more, mainly because I think (and I’ll assume you agree) that works of Islamic art, with is minute decorative swirls and intense geometric scribbles, can look spectacular when crowded together. Why not use that strength and go nuts with the galleries? Why not have a heavily decorated space, so you can really feel the opulence?
The short answer is funding. I’m guessing the Met didn’t have the same amount of money for the Islamic wing as they did for, say, the Greek and Roman sections. The Greek section feels like you’ve walked into the frisking pantheon of Gods, that’s how beautiful it is. The long answer is that it isn’t the Met’s responsibility to be the center of Islamic art. The Louvre redid their galleries and they weren’t all that either, though there was more money involved in part because they are opening in Abu Dhabi soon. The Doris Duke Foundation in Hawaii (of all places) used to have one for the largest collections of Islamic art in the world, but I think Doha took that title. So I guess it’s now up to Doha to build a proper museum.
The best part of the galleries is the way they have displayed the Mughal miniatures. When I had gone to visit the unfinished site, the curator showing us around gave us a little treat in the form of a sit down with some of the miniatures. We entered a small side room of the Met and spread out on the table were a selection of beautiful, heart-breakingly detailed miniatures. We wore gloves and delicately passed them around the table, aware even then that we were being granted a privilege incomparable to most things in today’s world.
It occurred to me then how necessary proximity is to understanding the miniature. Always intended to be read at hand level, the images require you to be physically close to them, not something a museum is going to encourage you to do. The Met solved this by mounting its miniatures on displays and having chairs in front of each one. This means you really get to see every glint of gold and flicker of paint. My distaste for the galleries aside, the objects therein are milestones from history. I spent four hours staring at just one room, so I do encourage you to see it. Even if not in New York, you can see details from the collection online, and in truth it’s online galleries from the world’s museums that keep me grounded when I’m in Pakistan.
I haven’t been thinking much about the Homeland, not gonna lie. Thankfully, unlike the beginning of the summer with our stonings and bombings and dronings (o my!), Pakistan’s name has been out of the World News for a bit. It’s been replaced with an anti-Israeli uproar and awe at the idea that Putin shot down a Malaysian Airlines airplane over Ukraine.
That’s why I love museums. You can see the worst of us on the news cycle, every week. Museums help us remember the best.
Write to thekantawala@gmail.com