FROM OBJECT TO ARTIST: THE (R)EVOLUTION OF ISLAMIC ART IN AUSTRALIA – TAASA Review September 2020

Nur Shkembi T he collection and display of Islamic art in Western institutions can be readily traced back to the late 1700’s in Europe, namely the Museum Central des Arts in Paris, and some decades later to London’s Great Exhibition held at Crystal Palace, the Kaiser-FriedrichMuseum in Berlin in 1904 and in 1910 to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, with disparate objects and modest collections of Islamic Art reaching Australia in the late 19th century.

The colonial and migrant history of Australia, coupled with its geographical remoteness, presents a unique situation in which the Muslim diaspora is connecting with its Islamic tradition and identity as Western Muslims.

For the continuity of Islamic art to be possible there must be a `renovation’ of the art history canon, with a call for the growing scholarship in this field to shift its focus from the object to the artist. Exterior view of the Islamic Museum of Australia...