Museum of Islamic Art, Berlin

The Museum of Islamic Art () is located in the Pergamon Museum and is part of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin.

Collection The museum exhibits diverse works of Islamic art from the 7th century to the 19th century from the area between Spain and India. Excavation activity in Ctesiphon, Samarra and Tabgha, as well as acquisition opportunities, led to Egypt, the Foreign Orient and Iran in particular being important focal points. Other regions are represented by important collection objects or groups, such as the calligraphy and miniature painting from the Mughal Empire or the sicilian ivory works of art.

Important objects of the collection The most notable pieces of the collection, which are kept variously because of their size, historical significance, or popularity with museum visitors, are: Mshatta Facade from the Umayyad palace of Mshatta in Jordan The Aleppo Room is the wall paneling from a broker's home in Aleppo, Syria, that was commissioned during the Ottoman Period.Annette Hagedorn "Aleppo Room" in Discover Islamicart Art. Place: Museum With No Frontiers, 2010. Alhambra cupolaThe dome was brought to Berlin by Arthur von Gwinner in 1891 and given to the museum by his heirs in 1978. Jens Kröger: Alhambra Dome (2012). Museum With No Frontiers – Discover Islamic Art.Anna McSweeney: Arthur von Gwinner and the Alhambra Dome in Julia Gonnella and Jens Kröger (eds) Wie die Islamische Kunst nach Berlin Kam. Der Sammler und Museumsdirektor Friedrich Sarre (Berlin: Dietrich Reimer Verlag GmbH, 2015), 89–102.Alhambra-Dome. Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek Mihrab from Kashan Mihrab from Konya Dragon-Phoenix carpet, Asia Minor, early 15th century. Quran-folding desk, Asia Minor (Konya), 13th century Book art (changing exhibition in the book art cabinets).

In addition to the permanent exhibition, the museum also shows exhibitions of modern art from the Islamic world, in 2008, for example, "Turkish Delight" (contemporary Turkish design) and "Naqsh" (gender and role models in Iran).

In 2009, the museum received on permanent loan a collection of Islamic art from the London collector Edmund de Unger (1918–2011), the so-called "Keir Collection", formerly housed in his home in Ham, Surrey. The collection, assembled over more than 50 years, comprises some 1,500 works of art spanning 2,000 years and is one of the largest private collections of Islamic art. More than one hundred exhibits from the Keir Collection were first shown in 2007/2008 in the special exhibition Sammlerglück. Islamic Art from the Edmund de Unger Collection presented to the public at the Pergamon Museum. Another special exhibition with parts of this loan took place from March 2010 as part of the permanent exhibition of the Museum of Islamic Art entitled Sammlerglück. Masterpieces of Islamic Art from the Keir Collection., distributed by University of Chicago Press In July 2012, the cooperation between the National Museums in Berlin-Prussian Cultural Heritage and the owners of the Edmund de Unger Collection was terminated and the collection, originally intended as a long-term loan, was withdrawn. The reasons given were differing ideas on how to continue working with the collection. Staatliche Museen zu Berlin – Preußischer Kulturbesitz

History

The museum was founded in 1904 by Wilhelm von Bode as the Islamic Department in the Kaiser-Friedrich-Museum (today's Bode-Museum) and initially established by Friedrich Sarre as honorary director.Jens Kröger: The Berlin Museum of Islamic Art as a Research Institution of Islamic Art in the 20th Century (PDF; 692 kB). In: XXX. Deutscher Orientalistentag, Freiburg, 24–28 September 2007. Selected Lectures, edited on behalf of the DMG by Rainer Brunner, Jens Peter Laut, and Maurus Reinkowski, 2009, p. 10. The occasion was the donation of the Mshatta facade, which originates from an unfinished umayyad desert palace located south of Amman by the Ottoman Sultan Abdülhamid II to Emperor Wilhelm II. Parts of the eastern portion of the facade and the ruins of the structure of which it formed a part remain in Jordan. Together with 21 carpets donated by Bode, the facade formed the basis of the collection. In the newly built Pergamon Museum, the museum moved into the upper floor of the south wing and was opened there in 1932. Because of II. World War, the exhibition was closed in 1939.

Despite the removal of artworks and the securing of objects remaining in the Pergamon Museum, the collection suffered damage and losses. A bomb hit destroyed one of the gate towers of the Mshatta façade, and an incendiary bomb burned all or part of valuable carpets housed in a vault at the Mint. In 1954 the collection was reopened as the Islamic Museum in the Pergamon Museum. The holdings that had been removed to the western occupation zones were returned to the museum in Dahlem, where they were also reexhibited in 1954 for the first time after the war. From 1968 to 1970, there was an exhibition in Charlottenburg Palace. In 1971, the permanent exhibition of the Museum of Islamic Art was opened in a new building in the Dahlem museum complex.

In 1958, the Islamic Museum in the Pergamon Museum on the Museumsinsel received back most of the artworks transferred to the Soviet Union from 1945 to 1946 as looted art. With the restoration of other important collection objects, it became possible to open all exhibition rooms to the public by 1967. Based on the Unification Treaty, the two museums were organizationally merged in 1992 under the name Museum of Islamic Art. At the Dahlem site, the exhibition closed in 1998. A newly designed permanent exhibition was opened on the upper floor of the south wing in the Pergamon Museum in 2000.

Directors The history of the collection was significantly shaped by the respective heads and directors, who thus simultaneously influenced the development of Islamic art history in Germany.

Wilhelm von Bode 1904–1921 Friedrich Sarre 1921–1931 Ernst Kühnel 1931–1951 Dahlem Museum Island Kurt Erdmann 1958–1964 Wolfgang Dudzus 1959–1965 Director of the Islamic Museum Klaus Brisch 1966–1988 Volkmar Enderlein 1965–1971 acting director, 1971–1978 amt. Director Michael Meinecke 1988–1991 1978–1991 Michael Meinecke 1992–1995 Volkmar Enderlein 1995–2001 Claus-Peter Haase 1 December 2001 – 31 January 2009 Stefan Weber since 1 February 2009

Multaka: Museum as Meeting Point In 2015, the museum started a new project for Arabic- and Persian-speaking refugees and other Muslim visitors titled "Multaka - Museum as Meeting Point". This intercultural museum project organizes guided tours for refugees and migrants designed and offered for free by specially trained Arabic-speaking Multaka guides. The visitor-centered discussions with migrants in their language are focused on the historical origin and history of acquisition of cultural objects, including the visitors' own understanding of their country's cultural heritage. In 2019 the four founding museums in Berlin joined six similar museums in the United Kingdom, Italy, Greece and Switzerland, creating the international Multaka network.

Exhibitions Permanent exhibitions since 2000: Islamic Cultures since 2016: transcultural relations, global biographies – Islamic art?

Special exhibitions

2013

Samarra – Center of the World. Masterpieces from the Seraglio paintings from the adhesive albums of Heinrich Friedrich von Diez Affordable to many. Printed fabrics from Egyptian tombs. Ornament and tongue: book bindings from the Islamic world.

2014

Indulgence and Intoxication. Wine, tobacco and drugs in Indian paintings. Pride and Passion. Representations of men in the Mughal period. Mshatta in Focus. The Jordanian desert castle in historical photographs.

2015

Picnic in the Park. Gardens in Islamic Miniature Painting Aatifi – News from Afghanistan. How Islamic Art Came to Berlin. The collector and museum director Friedrich Sarre

2016

Mystical Travelers: Sufis, ascetics, and holy men. Reading words – feeling words An introduction to the Koran in Berlin collections. Contrast Syria. Photographs by Mohamad Al Roumi The Legacy of the Ancient Kings. Ctesiphon and the Persian sources of Islamic art.

2017

Iran. Dawn of Modernity. Faithful wonder – Biblical traditions in the Islamic world. Cozy: rugs in Indian miniature paintings.

2018

Perched | Stopover. An Installation by Felekşan Onar. Copy and Mastery. The Gallery in the Book. Islamic scrapbooks Tape Art With a sense of proportion. Masterpieces of architecture in Yemen

Research and outreach projects Exhibition placement Fellowship International Museum of the Federal Cultural Foundation. Objects of Transfer Cultural Stories from the Museum of Islamic Arts Multaka: Treffpunkt Museum – Refugees as Guides in Berlin Museums

Research abroad Areia Antiqua. Ancient Herat / 3 projects Creation of digital cultural property registers for Syria Iran: The Provincial Museum Yazd / National Museum Tehran Qasr al-Mschatta: The Early Islamic Desert Castle of Mschatta, Jordan Reconstruction of an ancient cultural landscape in Baluchistan, Pakistan The Citadel of Aleppo, Syria

Cultural and political education Multaka project for museum educational access for Muslim visitors Common past – common future TAMAM – The educational project of mosque communities with the Museum of Islamic Art

Collection-related research Khurasan – Land of the Sunrise Ctesiphon Samarra and the art of the Abbasids The Yousef Jameel Digitization Project

Bibliography

Jens Kröger: Das Berliner Museum für Islamische Kunst als Forschungsinstitution der Islamischen Kunst im 20. Jahrhundert. (PDF; 692 kB). In: XXX. Deutscher Orientalistentag, Freiburg, 24.–28. September 2007. Ausgewählte Vorträge, herausgegeben im Auftrag der DMG von Rainer Brunner, Jens Peter Laut und Maurus Reinkowski. 2009. Stefan Weber: Zwischen Spätantike und Moderne: Zur Neukonzeption des Museums für Islamische Kunst im Pergamonmuseum. In: Jahrbuch Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Band XLVIII (2014), S. 226–257. Stefan Weber: Über uns und die anderen: Museen und kulturelle Bildung in der Islamdebatte. In: Jahrbuch Preußischer Kulturbesitz XLIX (2015), S. 88–109. Stefan Weber: Jeder kann Aleppo lieben. In: National Geographic, November (2016), S. 28–32 (Syrian Heritage Archive Project) Stefan Weber: Kampf um und gegen Kulturgüter im Nahen Osten – Das Fallbeispiel Syrien. In: BMVg.de: Der Reader Sicherheitspolitik, August (2016), S. 1–12 (Syrian Heritage Archive Project) Stefan Weber: Multaka: museum as meeting point. Refugees as guides in Berlin museums / Multaka: il museo come punto di incontro. I rifugiati come guide nei musei berlinesi. In: Archaeology & ME, Looking at archaeology in contemmpory Europe / Pensare l'archeologia nell'Europa contemporana. Bologna (2016), S. 142–45.

Museum of Islamic Art, Berlin

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