Islamic Art: Past, Present, Future

A group of renowned scholars, collectors, artists, and curators grapple with the challenging notion of defining "Islamic art."

In a world where the making and consumption of art is constantly changing, the term "Islamic art" can be hard to define. Through the exploration of a wide array of media--from painting, sculpture, and photography to video and multimedia--an internationally renowned group of scholars, collectors, artists, and curators tackles questions such as whether the art has to come from the Middle East, whether it must have a religious component, and, indeed, whether the work of art must be made by a Muslim. Based on a series of papers presented at the 7th Biennial Hamad bin Khalifa Symposium on Islamic Art in 2017, the essays in this volume grapple with these questions from a range of viewpoints. These texts--including beautiful illustrations of major works by contemporary artists from the Muslim world, including Newsha Tavakolian, Shahzia Sikander, Hassan Hajjaj and Lalla Essaydi--invoke a lively discussion of how the arts of the Islamic lands link the past with the present and the future.