LONDON — The British Museum will open a new gallery in 2018 dedicated to a broad swath of Islamic art, the museum announced.
Set in a pair of currently closed galleries in the heart of the museum, the Albukhary Foundation Gallery of the Islamic World will include sections dedicated to Islamic art until around 1500, and to artifacts from three 16th-century Islamic dynasties — the Ottoman, the Mughal and the Safavid. A selection of contemporary artwork will also appear – including works from “The Invisible Enemy Should Not Exist,” a series by the American artist Michael Rakowitz in which he recreated artworks looted from the National Museum of Iraq after the American-led invasion of 2003. The galleries will draw broadly from the museum’s existing collection, though a number of new acquisitions will go on display.
In a news release, Neil MacGregor, the director of the British Museum said, “These new galleries will allow us to present our collection in the context of world cultures, exploring the history, complexity and diversity of Islamic cultures across the world from sub-Saharan Africa to Malaysia and Indonesia.”
Several other museums have expanded efforts to present art and artifacts from the Islamic world in recent years.
In 2011, the Metropolitan Museum opened 15 galleries dedicated to Islamic art; and in 2012, the Louvre reopened its Department of Islamic Art after extensive renovation and expansion. In 2012, the British Museum opened “ Hajj: Journey to the Heart of Islam,” an exhibition centered around the pilgrimage to Mecca. Versions of the show appeared in Doha in Qatar; Leiden in the Netherlands; and Paris.
The Albukhary Foundation, a Malaysian philanthropic organization dedicated, according to its website, to spanning ‘‘the divide between the haves and the have-nots and between Muslim and non-Muslim societies” provided the major gift that will fund the new galleries. The British Museum will also put up money of its own. A spokeswoman for the British Museum said the foundation’s support was “in the millions” of British pounds.