Fwd: Narratives from the Middle East

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Salisbury, Kathryn <kathryn_salisbury@brown.edu>
Date: Mon, Oct 18, 2010 at 11:14 AM
Subject: Narratives from the Middle East
To: Humanities Center <humanities_center@brown.edu>

Thursday, October 21, 2010
6:00PM
Joukowsky Forum, Watson Institute
111 Thayer Street
reception to follow

"Narratives from the Middle East: The Contemporary Art Collection of
the British Museum"

Venetia Porter, curator of Islamic and Middle Eastern art at the
British Museum, will talk about the creation of the collection of
contemporary Middle Eastern art, the criteria for acquisition and the
insights the works can offer into the broader history of the region.

Venetia Porter is a curator responsible for the collection of Islamic
art as well as the collection of the modern and contemporary art of
the Middle East. She studied Arabic and Islamic art at Oxford
University and obtained her Ph.D on the medieval history and
architecture of the Yemen from the University of Durham. Her
particular areas of research and interest are Arabic inscriptions,
amulets and seals, ceramics and contemporary Middle Eastern art which
are the focus of her lectures and publications. In 2006 she curated
the exhibition Word into Art: Artists of the Modern Middle East which
was shown in the British Museum and in Dubai in 2008. She is currently
engaged in the preparation of the exhibition The Hajj:Journey to the
Heart of Islam which opens at the British Museum in January 2012.

Cosponsored by the Department of the History of Art & Architecture.