Curating Islamic Art in European Museums by Constance Jame

Curating Islamic Art in European Museums by Constance Jame

Since the early 2000s many museums around the world have been either reorganising or creating ex nihilo galleries dedicated to Islamic art. This movement has often been attributed by the press and scholars as a response to international geopolitical events. Challenging this prevailing narrative, in this book Jame examines these developments as part of a longue durée process rooted in evolving art historical perspectives and institutional efforts to de-Europeanise their approaches. Thus, she explores how Islamic art was presented and interpreted within Western European museums in the 2010s.

Through transnational comparative research, the book offers a comprehensive analysis of curatorial strategies across major European museums with significant Islamic art collections, focusing on the Département des Arts de l’Islam at the Musée du Louvre, the Albukhary Foundation Gallery of the Islamic World at the British Museum, and the Museum für Islamische Kunst in Berlin. Jame examines how these institutions have responded to shifting paradigms in both museum studies and art history. Drawing on theoretical frameworks of the New Museology and transcultural studies, she explores the entanglement of aesthetics, representation, institutional intent, and the shifting epistemologies of Islamic art history. The volume addresses a central yet overlooked aspect – the integration of contemporary art into galleries historically dedicated to Islamic art – interrogating the linear timeline traditionally assigned to Islamic art and its implicit exclusion of the modern era. Jame critically examines how museums, while aspiring to be platforms of cultural dialogue, continue to grapple with the enduring structures and categorisations inherited from their 19th-century foundations. This research reveals that beyond political influences, museums are redefining Islamic art through intentional engagement with societies, communities, and contemporary artists. Jame argues that efforts to decolonise or globalise the presentation of Islamic art often result in a reconfiguration rather than a dismantling of the European gaze – creating new forms of cultural othering under the guise of inclusivity.

By interrogating whether museums can function as active agents of epistemic and social transformation or remain tethered to ideological legacies, this contribution to art history, Islamic studies, and museum studies invites scholars, curators, and readers to reflect on how the display and definition of Islamic art continues to evolve.

Constance Jame is an art historian and museologist currently working as a provenance researcher for various French museums. Her research focuses on the historiography of Islamic art, the translocation of objects from the Islamic world to Europe and their exhibition, and the influence of postcolonial theories on museums. In 2024, she received for her doctoral research the August Grisebach Award from the Institute of European Art History at the Universität Heidelberg.