Seminar: Collecting & Exhibiting Art in the Middle East

The Met hosted a special scholarly seminar exploring how encyclopedic museums today collect and exhibit modern and contemporary art from the Middle East.

Providing a space for invitees to share ideas and learn from other experts in the U.S., Europe and the Middle East, the event marks an important step towards establishing a robust conversation amongst curators, artists and scholars in the field, serving as a foundation for future programming.

The seminar aimed to address the following questions:

How is the topography of collecting work from the Middle East shifting, and what role should an encyclopedic museum such as The Met play in this context?

How is modern and contemporary art from the Middle East positioned within encyclopedic museums such as The Met, The British Museum and The Victoria & Albert Museum?

What are the benefits and drawbacks of placing works of modern and contemporary art from the Middle East in art institutions outside of the region?

Participants included: Sultan AlQassemi, Founder and Director, Barjeel Art Foundation, UAE; Mohamed Elshahed, Modern Egypt Project Curator at the British Museum, 2016-2017; Salma Tuqan, Curator, Contemporary Arab Art and Design, Victoria & Albert Museum, London; Mohammed Melehi, Artist, Clare Davies, Assistant Curator, Modern and Contmporary Art, Middle East, North Africa, and Turkey at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.