Stories of Continuity. Contemporary Art and Collection of Islamic Art
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.26512/vis.v16i1.20454Keywords:
Islamic art. Contemporary. Anachronism. British Museum.Abstract
In the last thirty years, Islam understood as Islamic civilization has been, in many ways, increasingly associated with the notion of contemporary art. For example, many great museums in the world include works from their collection of contemporary art from the Middle East into their collection of historical Islamic art. This association between contemporary art and Islamic art led to the notion of Contemporary Islamic Art,which is grounded in the idea of permanence of Islamic art. Thus Islamic art can be seen “as the anachronism of a medieval art that never died” (Amy Goldin) and it is ascribed a transhistoric character: art, produced today in Muslim countries or by artists linked to Islam by their place of birth or by ascendancy, is thought to prolong Islamic art today. This interpretation is also founded on the idea of permanence of the Islamic civilization and on an a-historical conception of time. This paper will analyze this alternative conception of Islamic art’s periodization studying the case of the British Museum and relating it to the discourse of various non-western art historians and authors. The issue at stake goes beyond the artistic field: this revival of Islamic art is a means to establish through art the cultural continuity of the Islamic civilization.
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