Plain Talk
I have had occasion to write about the Dahesh Museum of Art, a "jewel of a museum" which I visited more than once. I even lectured there about neo-Orientalism, to coincide with an exhibition entitled "A distant muse: orientalist works from the Dahesh Museum of Art". Located on Fifth Avenue, New York's busiest thoroughfare, it is the only Arab museum in the United States; it is unique, too, in that it specialises in popular art of the 19th century, its collection of over 3,000 pieces including work by artists like Boughereau, Lord Leigton, Jean-Leon Gerome and many others. The collection is largely due to the interest Dr Dahesh, a Lebanese writer, philosopher and art collector, maintained in such creations. Dr Dahesh had dreamt of creating a public museum in Beirut before the city was destroyed by the Lebanese civil war. With the war raging he gave up the idea and, instead, managed to transfer his entire collection to the USA where it was looked after by friends.
Thus the museum was born. Chartered in 1987 and opened to the public in 1995, the museum gathered an international reputation, collaborating and exchanging art works with museums abroad, such as the Musée d'Orsay and the Musée du Louvre in France. Hosting numerous exhibitions, the museum also undertakes several educational activities including lectures, scholarly symposia and, even more significant, activities geared specifically to the needs of children -- school trips and partnerships with city schools -- as well as adults requiring education, be they casual visitors, community members or visiting scholars. Such presentations include story-telling sessions, sketching and class gallery visits for grade and high school students, regular gallery talks during the lunch hour on weekdays, group tours for schools, workshops to train teachers to use the museum as a resource. Such activities reflect the museum's conviction that art is an important and necessary part of the learning process from elementary to advanced study -- and that education remains a vital part of its mission.
Activities were rather limited due to limitations of space. A month ago, however, I received an invitation to attend the inauguration of the museum's new premises at 580 Madison Avenue. To avoid the present-day humiliation to which Arabs travelling to America are subjected, I apologised. But I have been following press reports on the new space and the two exhibitions presented on the occasion. I also received a beautifully produced book on the exhibition, French Artists in Rome: Ingres to Degas, 1803- 1873. The opening of the new premises was reported on in detail in the New York Times, the Times Literary Supplement and a score of other papers and magazines. The new premise has three levels and includes a large gallery, a museum shop holding a variety of merchandise that relates to the art on display, a café and a private dining room. Commenting on the ultra-modern new building and the rather academic nature of the Dahesh collection, the architect who planned and executed the project explained that the building had to be "adapted without compromising the museum's mission of showing academic art of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The painting and sculpture in the Dahesh collection represent the context from which modernism emerged, making the juxtaposition of contemporary building and pre- modern art uncommonly appropriate," he added. Seeing as New York has had few opportunities to view work of this kind, the Dahesh museum will undoubtedly fill a gap, giving the public access to an overlooked aspect of art history.
Judging by the media attention to the opening and the exhibition, it seems that art that is usual the exclusive property of art historians will no longer be ignored by the wider public. Another, more optimistic way of putting this would be to say that, thanks to institutions like the Dahesh Museum, arts produced in relation to the Arab world and other formerly colonised cultures is finally entering the mainstream.
Al-Ahram Weekly Online : 13 - 19 November 2003 (Issue No. 664)
Located at: http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2003/664/cu3.htm