TROPICANA MAGAZINE Jan-Feb 2020 #128 The Love Issue

THE ARTS
the East is a 50:50 collaboration, with each providing
half the contents of the exhibition as well as half the
curatorial direction.
British Museum Director Hartwig Fisher said,
“This major exhibition highlights just how extensive
and enduring cultural exchange between the west and
the Islamic world has been. It is an artistic relationship
that has endured for five centuries and has influenced
an astonishing diversity of material culture. We are
grateful to the Islamic Arts Museum Malaysia for
collaborating with us on this project and offering such
a generous loan of objects.”
Puan Sri Sharifah Zarah, a trustee of the
Albukhary Foundation that manages IAMM, said,
“The Islamic Arts Museum Malaysia’s chief purpose
is to highlight to Muslims and non Muslims alike
not just the achievements of Islamic culture but also
its influence across generations. Our museum looks
back 1,400 years to Mecca, a cultural meeting place
as complex as anything in the 21st century. Inspired
by the East focuses on 500 years of more recent
encounters. These were not always harmonious.
Compared with the present era though, there was
often more goodwill and considerable more curiosity.”
Cultural Connectivity
At the core of the exhibition is the examination
of the artistic tradition known as Orientalism,
a representation of the east in western arts that
often blurred the lines between fantasy and reality.
Orientalism traces its origins to the 1500s, and
peaked as an art movement in the 19th century when
western artists began visiting the Middle East and
North Africa in greater numbers.
Visitors to the exhibition will see the sumptuous
influences of the east on the visual and decorative
arts of Western artists. Their works transport you to
a variety of Islamic settings – from the grandeur of
Ottoman court life and elaborate interior of mansions
the wealthy to the buzz of regular street life, serenity
of the desert and devotion to their faith. The artists
appear fascinated by the beauty of exotic women and
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