Muhammed Gives the Met the Jitters

[jimmy olsen]

Totally weak, the Met should be ashamed of itself.

http://www.tnr.com/blog/the-spine/mohammed-gives-the-met-the-jitters

Muhammed Gives the Met the Jitters

    *
      Marty Peretz

This is an inside New York story that I read in the New York Post. But it's really an international story with serious ramifications. This is actually a postscript to the twelve Danish cartoons of four years ago, one of which was the image of a bomb in Muhammed's turban. There was an attempt on the life of this particular cartoonist, Kurt Westergaard, by a Somali jihadnik a week after the Christmas bomber struck. The Somali was arrested, as was the Nigerian. Notice that Muslim fanaticism is now also an African phenomenon.

Apparently, the Metropolitan Museum of Art has used the pretext of its $50 million renovation to jettison three early images of Muhammed--painted long before the religious authorities decided they were verboten.

The eminences at the Met have also opted to rename their "Islamic Galleries"; the showing rooms will soon be called "Arab Lands, Turkey, Iran, Central Asia and Later South Asia." This is a mouthful. It is also a distraction from Islam, suggested Kishwar Rizvi, professor of Islamic art history at Yale. He argued that "it's cumbersome and problematic to base [the exhibit] on nationalistic boundaries."

The Met is the second high-culture institution in recent months to capitulate to Muslim vigilantes with regard to the visage of Muhammed. The first, ironically, was Yale University Press, which excised images of the prophet from a scholarly book, The Cartoons That Shook the World, by Professor Jytte Klausen of Brandeis.

Yale's panic is pathetic. So is the Met's panic pathetic, positively pathetic.

Probably the most eminent and learned scholar of the art history of Islam, Oleg Grabar, professor emeritus at the Institute for Advanced Study, wrote for TNR what several other authorities in the field considered the definitive judgment on the topic: This contemporary Muslim obsession is ahistorical and really has nothing to do with Islam. You would have thought fini. But it is not fini at all.

[garbon]

For changing the items it has on display?

[Sheilbh]

Does the New York Post have any basis for this story?  I can't see any here.

When galleries and museums renovate areas - especially if they're renaming/reorganising them - then it's entirely normal for them to reevaluate the content and put some stuff into storage and bring some stuff out.  It's happened with the V&A's Medieval Gallery and will happen with their Ceramics Gallery, for example.

[jimmy olsen]

Does the New York Post have any basis for this story?  I can't see any here.

When galleries and museums renovate areas - especially if they're renaming/reorganising them - then it's entirely normal for them to reevaluate the content and put some stuff into storage and bring some stuff out.  It's happened with the V&A's Medieval Gallery and will happen with their Ceramics Gallery, for example.

The New Republic and The New York Post aren't exactly ideological buddies, if its in TNR one would assume there's some truth to the story.

[grumbler]

..., if its in TNR one would assume there's some truth to the story.

That's probably never a good assumption where Marty Peretz is concerned.  Here is a guy claiming to just "notice" that "that Muslim fanaticism is now also an African phenomenon."

[Sheilbh]

The New Republic and The New York Post aren't exactly ideological buddies, if its in TNR one would assume there's some truth to the story.

Marty Peretz is a bit different from TNR as a whole, and he's extremely pro-Israel and, in my opinion, over the top in his opinions on Islam. 

Not a great deal of truth in my reading of the NYP's article.  That's why the first line ends with a question mark.

'Jihad' jitters at Met

By ISABEL VINCENT

Last Updated: 2:00 PM, January 10, 2010

Posted: 2:58 AM, January 10, 2010
Is the Met afraid of Mohammed?

The Metropolitan Museum of Art quietly pulled images of the Prophet Mohammed from its Islamic collection and may not include them in a renovated exhibition area slated to open in 2011, The Post has learned.

The museum said the controversial images -- objected to by conservative Muslims who say their religion forbids images of their holy founder -- were "under review."

Critics say the Met has a history of dodging criticism and likely wants to escape the kind of outcry that Danish cartoons of Mohammed caused in 2006.

"This is typical of the Met -- trying to avoid any controversy," said a source with inside knowledge of the museum.

The Met currently has about 60 items from its 60,000-piece Islamic collection on temporary display in a corner of its vast second-floor Great Hall while larger galleries are renovated. But its three ancient renderings of Mohammed are not among them.

"We have a very small space at the moment in which to display the whole sweep of Islamic art," said spokeswoman Egle Zygas. "They didn't fit the theme of the current installation."

But it's not certain Mohammed will go on display when the Met finishes its $50 million renovation in 2011.

Three years ago, the Met changed its "Primitive Art Galleries" to the "Arts of Africa, Oceania and the Americas" for the sake of political correctness, said author Michael Gross, author of "Rogues' Gallery," a book about the Met.

Just recently, it decided its highly anticipated "Islamic Galleries" will be given an awkward new name ahead of the 2011 opening. Visitors will stroll around rooms dedicated to art from "Arab Lands, Turkey, Iran, Central Asia and Later South Asia," according to a museum press release.

Islamic art expert Kishwar Rizvi said the Met -- which has one of the world's best Islamic collections -- has nothing to fear from Mohammed.

"Museums shouldn't shy away from showing this in a historical context," said Rizvi, historian of Islamic Art at Yale University.

Rizvi said it was "a shame" the museum dropped the word Islamic from the title.

"It's cumbersome and problematic to base it on nationalistic boundaries," the historian said.

Surely if conservative Muslims were objecting to these images the NYP could find one example to demonstrate their point.  Instead we've got 'critics of the Met', rather surprisingly criticising the Met and a source with 'knowledge of the museum' saying it's 'typical'; they'd do anything 'to avoid controversy'.

These three images, out of 60 000 did not make it into the top 60.  I'm not sure that's hugely indicative of the Mohammed jitters.

Does the Post have any idea what will be on display in over a year's time after its renovation?  I'd be surprised if that's already been decided; they have 60 000 objects to appraise and try work out a coherent exhibition.

On the last bit I don't know what's happening in this exhibition.  I think the new title sounds promising.  I dislike that in, for example, the British Museum Islamic artifacts are in a separate area.  I'd rather have rooms on, say, Iran, or the Arab world that show pre-Islamic art next to Islamic art so that you can see the nature of any continuity as well as having those areas next to each other so you can look for the nature of influence.   But the gallery may not be doing that.  I've about as much idea what it'll be about as the author of this article.

Also renaming the primitive gallery seems fair enough to me.

[Siege]

Pussies.

[garbon]

Pussies.

Read Sheilbh's posts and stop being such a gaylord.

[Richard Hakluyt]

"fini" 

Surely finis?

[grumbler]

On the last bit I don't know what's happening in this exhibition.  I think the new title sounds promising.  I dislike that in, for example, the British Museum Islamic artifacts are in a separate area.  I'd rather have rooms on, say, Iran, or the Arab world that show pre-Islamic art next to Islamic art so that you can see the nature of any continuity as well as having those areas next to each other so you can look for the nature of influence.   But the gallery may not be doing that.  I've about as much idea what it'll be about as the author of this article.

Agree.  What makes "Islamic Art" so interesting is that it is an amalgam of traditions. It is better-placed within time and space than separated out.

Also renaming the primitive gallery seems fair enough to me.

Yeah, the idea that the art in that gallery was actually "primitive" was pretty laughable, especially when you have modern artists who have deliberately made art that is far less sophisticated.

[Razgovory]

Pussies.

Read Sheilbh's posts and stop being such a gaylord.

I think this is just reaction to museums and other aspects of high culture.