080097 EX Field Trip: Berlin (2021W)

This fieldtrip focuses on collections, works and the reception of Islamic art in and near Berlin.

Scholarly research and an artistic and commercial reception of Islamic art went on similar paths in the various German-speaking countries since the 19th century. The conditions differed. In Austria, works of historical Islamic art are held by various and very different public collections. A perception of Islamic art took place in 19th century Orientalism in the decorative arts and in historicist architecture.

In Germany, too, objects of Islamic art are spread over collections that are thematically quite different, and 19th- and early 20th-century reception ran along similar lines. Yet with the founding of the Museum of Islamic Art (1904), as it is now called (MIA), emerged a central institution for collecting, researching, and mediating on Berlin's Museum Island. Since its beginning, an interest in archaeological research and architectural monuments formed two special aspects of the museum.

The fieldtrip focuses on central works of Islamic art in Berlin collections, it addresses questions of collecting histories and their political context, and it looks at forms of reception of Islamic art and at museum architecture.

Collections, sites and buildings that may be visited in and near Berlin, include, inter alia: the Museumsinsel with Museum of Islamic Art, Museum of the Ancient Near East, Pergamon Museum, Egyptian Museum, Old National Gallery, the special exhibition "Iran: Art and Culture of five millenia" in the MIA; Museum of Decorative Arts; New Synagogue; Potsdam, buildings in Sanssouci Palace and residential buildings.