Middle Eastern Museum Exhibits & Events are Hot this Spring and Summer at The Guggenheim and The MET

Written by Stephanie Taylor
Intelligent Luxury

    The Culture Summit Abu Dhabi 2019, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation joins Google, UNESCO, the Royal Academy of Arts, and The Economist Events in developing five streams of programming to address the theme of Cultural Responsibility and New Technology.

Comprised of three panels, the program will be held from April 7 through 11 at Manarat Al Saadiyat, Abu Dhabi.

Moderated by:


  • Richard Armstrong, Director, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and Foundation
  • Alexandra Munroe, Senior Curator, Asian Art and Senior Advisor, Global Arts, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and Interim Director, Curatorial Affairs, Guggenheim Abu Dhabi
  • Troy Conrad Therrien, Curator, Architecture and Digital Initiatives, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, 


For the complete list of participants and full information on all five streams of programming, visit culturesummitabudhabi.com/en/.  This is an online stream exhibit too. 

You can also plan to visit the future Guggenheim in Abu Dhabi named The Guggenheim Abu Dhabi. 


The World between Empires: Art and Identity in the Ancient Middle East

World between Empires
Photograph: The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Exhibition Dates:March 18–June 23, 2019
Exhibition Location:The Met Fifth Avenue, The Tisch Galleries, Gallery 899

The landmark exhibition The World between Empires: Art and Identity in the Ancient Middle East, which opens March 18, 2019, at The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Petra, Baalbek, Palmyra, and Hatra are cities that were the "...center of global commerce and the meeting point of two powerful empires . . . , " stated the press release from The MET, from 100 B.C. to A.D. 250.  Iran and Rome are the empires that led the world.   The exhibit is about sculptures, wall paintings, jewelry, and "other objects from museums in the United States, Europe, and the Middle East. "  I am still reading Tales from the Arabian Nights; Middle Eastern folklore that describes several Middle Eastern objects. 
Emphasis on slowing the destruction of cultural artifacts in the Middle East. 
“The compelling works of art in this exhibition offer a view into how people in the ancient Middle East sought to define themselves during a time of tremendous religious, creative, and political activity, revealing aspects of their lives and communities that resonate some two millennia later,” said Max Hollein, Director, The Metropolitan Museum of Art.  “Further, in focusing on an area of the world that has been deeply affected by recent conflicts and the destruction of sites, monuments, and objects, this show also engages with complex questions about the preservation of cultural heritage.”
The exhibition is made possible by Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman.
Additional support is provided by the Gail and Parker Gilbert Fund and the Ruddock Foundation for the Arts.
Exhibition Overview

Catalogue and Programs
The exhibition is accompanied by a richly illustrated catalogue, suitable for specialists and the general public alike. Published by The Metropolitan Museum of Art and distributed by Yale University Press, the book will be available in The Met Store ($65, hardcover).
The catalogue is made possible by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
Education programs include: two informal 30-minute “Conversations with…” (April 19 and May 17, 11:30);  an in-depth 60-minute “Curators’ Talk” (May 10, 6:30 p.m.); a “Sunday at The Met” featuring discussion of trading networks that linked the Middle East to Central Asia, South Asia, and China (April 7, 2 p.m. to 3:30 p.m.); and a two-day symposium focused on civic, religious, and personal identities revealed in the art of the ancient Middle East (March 28 and 29, 10 a.m.–5 p.m.). 
The symposium is made possible by the Macaulay Family Foundation.
Memory and Culture is the theme for the April 12 MetFridays (5:30–9 p.m.) The evening will include talks, screenings, workshops, and art-making activities that explore the impact of memory on cultural heritage. Tim Slade, director of the film The Destruction of Memory, and Azra AkÅ¡amija, artist and Associate Professor of Architecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, will discuss implications of the destruction and looting suffered at significant cultural heritage sites (6:30–8 pm). Clips of the film will be shown.
This lecture is made possible by the Pearl Ehrlich Fund.
This event is part of MetFridays: New York's Night Out
MetFridays programs are made possible in part by Bonnie J. Sacerdote.
There will be a career lab on the topic of Culture and Art for teens, ages 15–18 (March 15, 4:30–6:30 p.m.). This program is free; reservations are encouraged (metmuseum.org/teens).
The exhibition will be featured on The Met website as well as on FacebookInstagram, and Twitter using the hashtag #WorldBetweenEmpires.
Credits
The exhibition is organized by Michael Seymour, Assistant Curator, and Blair Fowlkes-Childs, Research Associate, both of the Museum’s Department of Ancient Near Eastern Art.


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