Islamic Art: Past, Present and Future?

About the 2017 Symposium

The question of what the term “Islamic art” means is challenging. Is it even a useful term? Are there any better alternatives? The problem is particularly difficult when addressing modern and contemporary art. Does the work of art have to be made by a Muslim? Or does the artist have to come from the Middle East? Does the art have to have a religious component? Is Arabic calligraphy an essential part? Are there other features that define the term?

This symposium will grapple with these broad questions from a range of viewpoints, including scholars who use or don’t use the term to write about the art, collectors and curators who buy and exhibit it, and artists who make it.

Please join us to be part of the conversation at the 7^thBiennial Hamad bin Khalifa Symposium on Islamic Art, titled Islamic Art: Past, Present and Future?, November 2-4, 2017 in Richmond, Virginia at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. Symposium speakers include HE Sheikha Al Mayassa bint Hamad Al Thani, the contemporary artists Lalla Essaydi, Shahzia Sikander and Hassan Hajjaj, and some of the leading curators, collectors and leaders in the field of contemporary Islamic art.

About the Symposia Series

The Hamad bin Khalifa Symposium on Islamic Art is the leading international conference on Islamic art and architecture. The symposium is co-sponsored by VCUarts, VCUarts Qatar and the Qatar Foundation and has been held every two years since 2004. It is chaired by Sheila S. Blair and Jonathan M. Bloom who share the Hamad Bin Khalifa Endowed Chair of Islamic Art at Virginia Commonwealth University.

Since its establishment in 2004, the HBK Symposium has:

• Attracted over 2,200 attendees from every continent;
• Hosted over 70 speakers, including the leading scholars, curators and practitioners of Islamic art;
• Enabled over 60 scholars of Islamic art and culture to come to the Symposium as an HBK Fellow, all travel expenses paid;
• Generated the publication of six books, published by Yale University Press, which gather the talks presented at each Symposium since 2007;
• Been downloaded in the form of free podcasts from our website over 10,000 times since 2010.