Islamic art and its gift to the world

At Los Angeles' County Museum of Art (LACMA), 25 art pieces have been studiously selected by curator Linda Komaroff. They will be the museum's latest effort to showcase contemporary 'Islamic' art to the United States.

The ongoing exhibition includes an x-ray print-Islamic art amalgam by Saudi Arabia's Ahmed Mater, and the evocative imagery of Iranian multimedia artist Shirin Neshat.

'Islamic Art Now: Contemporary Art of the Middle East' is probably one of the best examples of art from Iran, Central Asia and the Arab world you will find under one roof.

An appreciation of beauty is part our shared humanity. - Linda Kamaroff

"All the works in exhibition are from LACMA's collection and I made the selection based on what I thought would work well as an exhibition," Komaroff says.

She places both Mona Hatoum's iconic 'Prayer Mat' beside Barbad Golshiri's 'The Untitled Tomb' on low concrete platforms to make each piece "startling", as she describes them, in their own way.

Kamaroff has been the museum's Islamic art curator for the past two decades. During her tenure she has given many Angelinos their first glimpse of art from the Islamic world. This helps to break perceptions and Orientalist ideas about the East, by allowing visitors to view aspects of the 'Islamic world' through the eyes of contemporary artists.

Kamaroff began to build the reputation of the Los Angeles museum during her early years as a curator, through an erudite passion for the classical Islamic arts, and cool assesment of comtemporary movements in the region.

A first major coup by the curator, which helped build the museum's reputation, was the aquisition of the Madina Collection of Islamic art in 2002.

Since then, she has built the LACMA's one art piece at a time.

It has given this museum on the sunny West Coast of the United States one of the best collections of Islamic art in the world.

Along with Venetia Porter of the British Museum and Sheila Canby of The Metropolitan Museum, she has been described as one of the three crown jewels in Islamic art curation.

She has also been granted a long line of awards for her academic research and writing, including the Annual Publication Prize for her catalogue of the 'Gifts of the Sultan' exhibition, a highly acclaimed presentation of Islamic art that won international acclaim.

What is your relationship with Sheila Canby and Venetia porter like, and how does your style of curation differ from theirs?

They are colleagues of long acquaintance with whom I enjoy very cordial relations. In terms of contemporary Middle East art, LACMA has been buying videos and other time-based media, which I think the British Museum is only just starting to acquire. I am not sure about the Met.

In 2006, you started collecting more contemporary Middle Eastern Art from Iran and the Arab world. Can you tell us what spurred that sudden interest in Iranian art?

My main area of interest has been Iran and Central Asia with regard to historical Islamic art. In 2006 we began to acquire contemporary Middle East art.

I was strongly influenced by Venetia Porter's exhibition 'Word into Art'. I have discussed this in my short piece in the Ahmad Mater book published by Edge of Arabia a few years ago.

While there are as yet no Turkish artists represented in the contemporary collection, I hope to rectify that in the coming year. It is not an intentional omission, but I have not found what I wanted at the right price.

I also hope to add some Central Asian artists to the collection as well.

You are not only a curator, you are also a seasoned academic, a writer, and you review books and edit chapters on Islamic art. How do you maintain this balance?

I don't sleep as much as I would like. But seriously, it is essential for me to continue to expand my own pool of knowledge and to publish and lecture as much as time allows. I enjoy teaching but do not always have the time.

History of art has been traditionally dominated by men. How has your experience as a woman in this field been?

Compared to other fields, art history is fairly female-friendly. I was once asked a long time ago by an American male university professor if I did not find it difficult as a woman working in the Middle East.

My colleague responded, "Well, I guess [being a museum director] is not as an important  job in the Middle East as it is in America".

When I pointed out that several of the most important national museums for Islamic art, in Cairo and Istanbul for example, had women as their directors, and at a time when no major museum in the United States had as yet appointed a woman.

The response from this colleague was, "Well, I guess it is not as important a job in the Middle East as in America".

The image of the Islam has been continuously degenerated in the West. As a scholar and curator, where have you been at the fulcrum of all this?

I think that art in a museum context can play an important role in introducing our visitors to the Islamic world and inspiring them to learn more. An appreciation of beauty is part our shared humanity.

Art can also evoke an emotional response which helps to remind us that we are all human and share common feelings.

I think certain contemporary works now on view at LACMA such as Sadik al-Fraji's 'The House My Father Built', and Mona Hatoum's 'Measures of Distance', for instance, have to do with subject matter that is universal - the death of a parent or separation through distance.

I believe this helps to break down stereotypes and remind visitors how much we are alike. In terms of Islamic art, I believe that my 'Gifts of the Sultan' show and the upcoming 'Gardens of Eternity' use themes to which we can all relate.

Los Angeles has the largest Iranian community outside Iran. Your show ‘The Legacy of Genghis Khan’ generated heavy criticism from that community.

My only comment is that the exhibition catalogue won the most prestigious award granted by the main academic body for the history of art in the United States; the College Art Association, the Alfred Barr award.

The associated symposium, 'Beyond the Legacy of Genghis Khan', was evidently so well received in the academic community that it went into a second printing in paperback.

I enjoy excellent relations with the Iranian-American community of Greater Los Angeles. You can look at the Farhang Foundation website and be in touch with their executive director in this regard.

Can you tell us about your next show Visualising Paradise Islamic Art?

'Gardens of Eternity: Visualising Paradise in Islamic Art' is a pan-Islamic exhibition that will extend from the seventh century up to the present and include some 175 works of art from the Islamic world and diaspora communities.

A themed exhibition of this scope, with objects of the highest quality and aesthetic appeal, has never before been undertaken anywhere else.

Given the current concerns of this post-9/11 world, 'Gardens of Eternity' will not only introduce an American audience to Islamic art through a shared notion of "paradise", it will provide a means of penetrating the history of a religion and a culture that are often in the news but are little understood.

Through this confluence of beautiful, historically relevant, stimulating and diverse works of art, visitors will discover the rich traditions within this art and its extension up to the present day, as well as to gain a better understanding of the multi-dimensional character of Islam itself.