Real Clear Arts

Judith H. Dobrzynski on Culture

Forbidden Territory: British Museum Hajj Exhibition

The reopening of the new and improved Islamic art galleries at the Metropolitan Museum* last fall is just one of many recent initiatives to expose us all to Islamic culture — so many that they all cannot be chronicled here. But I was intrigued by the focus of an exhibition at the British Museum, which opened last week and runs until Apr. 15: it’s called “Hajj: Journey to the Heart of Islam.” It’s forbidden territory, since only Muslims may enter Mecca, the destination of the hajj. How was this to be depicted? This is the first exhibition to try, according to the press release.

The British Museum needed help, despite its giant collection — and got it from the King Abdulaziz Public Library in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Together they organized the show around three major strands: the journey, especially the major routes used by pilgrims over time from Africa, Asia, Europe and the Middle East; the contemporary hajj today, including the rituals involved and the meaning of the experience; and Mecca itself, namely the origins and importance of a place that is forbidden to most of the viewers.

The BM borrowed much of the material on view, including a seetanah, which covers the door of the Ka’ba (the black cube Muslims believe was built by Abraham and his son Ishmael), from Saudi Arabia, and many objects from public and private collections around the world, including the British Library and 45 objects from the Islamic collection of  the Khalili Family Trust (which, at some 20,000 objects, claims to be the largest and most comprehensive Islamic collection in the world).  Says the BM:

Together these objects will evoke and document the long and perilous journey associated with the pilgrimage, gifts offered to the sanctuary as acts of devotion and the souvenirs that are brought back from Hajj. They include archaeological material, manuscripts, textiles, historic photographs and contemporary art. The Hajj has a deep emotional and spiritual significance for Muslims, and continues to inspire a wide range of personal, literary and artistic responses, many of which will be explored throughout the exhibition.

I have no plans to visit Britain during the show, unfortunately, but I was able to see some of this on line from press materials and the BM’s site.   

So, here is “Panoramic view of Mecca,” by Muhammad ‘Abdullah, the Delhi cartographer, Probably Mecca, c. 1845:

And here is “View of the sanctuary at Mecca,” 17th or 18th century. 

 It’s hard to tell, from here, exactly what we are missing, and this show doesn’t seem to be traveling. But BM helps a little – this is expected nowadays — it has placed some material about the exhibit on its website, including a little video and “Hajj stories” from contributors. 

Not like being there, of course.  

Photo Credits:  Courtesy of the Khalili Family Trust

*I consult to a Foundation that supports the Met

Breaking Now: MFAH Selects Architect

This just in from the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston: Steven Holl Architects will design its contemporary art building. If Holl (at right) is as sensitive and smart as he was for the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art’s Bloch building, it’s an excellent choice. (See what I’ve written for the Wall Street Journal about that building here.)

Here’s what the museum says:

Cornelia Long, chair of the Board of Trustees of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, announced today that Steven Holl Architects has been selected to partner with the board and staff of the museum in developing an expansion that enlarges the museum’s presentation of its collections, exhibitions and myriad educational programs. The project will entail the construction of a new museum building intended primarily for art after 1900 to complement the Audrey Jones Beck and Caroline Wiess Law Buildings. Further, the project will address the integration of the Lillie and Hugh Roy Cullen Sculpture Garden and the expansion of the Glassell School of Art. A new parking facility will be added, as well. For more information, please see the attached news release.

I hope he pays not too much attention to the “complement” the other buildings there line. They are, in my view, abyssmal for showing art and none too pretty on the outside either.

Holl beat out Morphosis and Snøhetta to win the job. Their charge, and other details, are here.

 

A Reinstallation That Gives Beckmann A Room Of His Own

I can’t prove it (yet), but it seems to me that the renewed focus by museums on their permanent collections during these years of financial worries is producing some very fine results — not innovations, really, but new applications of some practices in different places to excellent effect.

The Beckmann Gallery

I just learned of another example: The St. Louis Art Museum, in reinstalling its permanent collection, has created a separate gallery for Max Beckmann. This seems long overdue. By its own admission, the museum owns the world’s largest collection of Beckmann paintings, sculptures and prints.

The new gallery holds 14 works by Beckmann spanning his career and including two enormous works, “Scene from Destruction of Messina” and “The Sinking of the Titanic,” which according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, “are on view for the first time in years.”

Simon Kelly, the SLAM’s Modern and contemporary art curator, told the paper that gallery is among the largest in the museum, and that the museum will hang more Beckmann paintings in other galleries.

The central goal of this reinstallation was to showcase that part of our collection that is internationally known…When you go to Europe, people talk about St. Louis because of Beckmann. We haven’t showcased it sufficiently.

Indeed. This pleases me, as a Beckmann fan, but it’s also important because the new gallery helps give the museum its own personality. (Too many museums, with cookie-cutter, one-of-each collections, look alike.)

The reinstallation involves 18 galleries, all told, and it includes 12 new acquisitions, plus “45 works that have not been on view for a decade or more and several other pieces that have undergone extensive conservation.” The museum has a video of it on this page, but I couldn’t download it without setting off security because it’s too big.

I’ve mentioned what some other museums are doing here, here, and here, among other posts.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of the Post-Dispatch

 

Does The Visual Art World Need Sharper Criticism? Yes.

Does the art world need a good hatchet job or two?

That thought crossed my mind when I read A New Honor for the Hatchet Job, on The New York Times website: it outlines a prize, soon to be given by a British website called The Omnivore, which “will be presented to the author of the angriest, funniest, most trenchant book review of the past twelve months.” The point, says The Omnivore, is “to raise the profile of professional critics and to promote integrity and wit in literary journalism.”

It didn’t take me more than a few seconds to click on the link to the eight finalists — all but one published in Britain, and that one — in The New York Times — was by a Brit. Could a shortlist of hatchet jobs for book reviews even be developed in the U.S.? Are our reviews too bland?

More to the point of this post, could anyone make such a list for art criticism? I’m not looking for nastiness — but when was the last time you read a learned, thoughtful, well-argued critique of a museum or gallery exhibition that was negative? Even the negative reviews of the show of spot paintings of Damien Hirst that I saw wouldn’t qualify.

Like The Omnivore, I think a little more sharp, trenchant art reviews by authoritative critics would do the art world some good — particularly in the world of contemporary art, where artists are still alive to respond (or not, as they choose).

The quality of criticism is hardly a new issue. (I wrote about critics’ losing influence myself, back in 1998, for the NYT.) I recall a recent conversation with a theater figure who told me he rarely reads the critics anymore because he no longer learns from them. Sometimes, learning from negative reviews is easier than trying to discern anything at all from positive reviews.

And a hatchet job might get people outside the art world talking about art. Just a thought.

 

 

Someone’s Reading, and Listening…

They didn’t give me credit, of course, but I was amused today when, after a few days absence, I turned on WNYC to listen to today’s episode of the BBC’s “A History of the World in 100 Objects.” When I touted the series here, on Jan. 17, I suggested that “ the Museum of the City of New York’s collection [be used] to tell the history of New York in 10 objects.”

Instead, the Leonard Lopate show itself it doing it. Without so much as mentioning my post — which, I suppose is retribution, as I mentioned only WNYC, not the LL show itself in my post.

In a post dated Jan. 25, the show invites New Yorkers “to tell A Story of New York in 10 Objects! Tell us which objects you think tell the story of New York—from the iconic to the everyday. All objects must be able to fit inside a museum, and can be things like an elevator from the Empire State Building, a bagel, or a subway token. Include a brief description of why you think the object helps define New York City…” Boldface theirs. 

Now, of course, the idea is not so rarified that producers couldn’t have thought if it themselves. But I do know, from sources there, that WNYC includes several readers of Real Clear Arts. So I wouldn’t be surprised…