Beauty and Belief Enters Its Final Month
After a seven-month run, the BYU Museum of Art’s headline exhibition, Beauty and Belief: Crossing Bridges with the Arts of Islamic Culture, will be closing on September 29, 2012. The exhibition offers access to Islamic culture, providing “a view from within” by project director, Dr. Sabiha Al Khemir.
“The response to this exhibition has been phenomenal,” said Mark Magleby, Director of the BYU Museum of Art. “Muslim, LDS, and other religious leaders and diplomats have praised the exhibition for its insight and sensitivity. The objects are splendid, lent to BYU by forty of the greatest museums and collections in the world. It is the largest and most thematically riveting survey of Islamic art and culture ever to travel, and it has been a memorable and moving experience for our diverse audiences.”
The exhibition was supplemented by a series of lectures and workshops about many aspects of Islamic culture, the final three programs of which include
- September 6: A distinguished lecture in international affairs by Seyyed Hossein Nasr. Nasr is a University Professor of Islamic Studies at The George Washington University. He is a Muslim-Persian philosopher and renowned scholar of comparative religion. This lecture is co-sponsored with the Wheatley Institution. Learn more here..
- September 7: A workshop with Dr. Lisa DeLong on “The Nature of Geometry in Islamic Art.” In this workshop, participants will be introduced to how geometric pattern expresses the coming together of heaven and earth. Learn more here.
- September 21: A workshop with Dr. Glenn Cooper, entitled “Exploring Astrolabes.” BYU Professor Dr. Glen Cooper will discuss how the instrument was used throughout the Islamic and European worlds and will teach participants how they functioned. Learn more here.
The diversity of students from around the world made the BYU Museum of Art a wonderful place to organize and begin the traveling exhibition. Numerous BYU students have visited the exhibition since the opening. Some came to fulfill a class requirement while others came out of a desire to learn more about Islamic culture.
After its time at BYU, Beauty and Belief will travel to the Indianapolis Museum of Art from November 2, 2012 to January 13, 2013.
