 "Photo: Courtesy The Detroit Institute of Arts")
The Detroit Institute of Arts opened its new Gallery of Islamic Art Feb. 28. Originally conceived as part of the DIA’s re-installation that opened in 2007, the gallery was unable to open until recently.
DIA Director Gram Beal said that this is the first installment of the Asian collection and will eventually expand to include works of art from the far-east and India.
“We want to expand our Euro-centric institution to include art from all over the world,” Beal said. “Viewing works of art from non-western cultures requires a different mindset. The Islamic gallery encompasses an astonishing range of different forms of art from different countries under a common religious theme … The gallery is set up to display the glory and diversity inherent in the art of the Islamic world.”
Heather Ecker, curator of Islamic art at the DIA, said that when designing the gallery, it was important to her to group them in a context where the objects can tell stories.
“This collection represents a vast region, from Spain to India, which was, for a long time, the extent of the known world,” Ecker said. “The earliest art forms represented were created in the ninth century; the most recent ones are from the 20th.”
The gallery is dimly lit because many of the objects are light sensitive and must be rotated out every few months. The gallery exhibits a variety of different objects including ceramics, glass, ivory, weapons, metalwork, textiles, sculptures, jewelry and manuscripts.
Among the objects on display are an Iranian Quran from the mid-15th century and a large summer carpet created using a technique called “voided velvet,” in which velvet only shows through certain parts of the pattern resulting in a variation of texture.
These carpets are extremely rare, and the one in the DIA’s collection is the largest surviving summer carpet from the 17th century.
An entire section of the gallery is devoted to sacred manuscripts.
“This collection will really resonate with the large Islamic student body at Wayne State,” Public Relations Director Pamela Marcil said. “I think students will be interested in learning how the art of the Islamic world influenced other cultures.”
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