Navina Haidar's Islamic Art Galleries Open At the Metropolitan Museum of Art

HUFFINGTON POST
By Jaweed Kaleem

NEW YORK -- For eight years, Navina Haidar, a 45-year-old art historian, has prepared for the reopening of The Met's Islamic art collection, which was closed in 2003 for renovations and expansion. After $40 million of work, a starkly different iteration of the museum's former Islamic Wing opened on Tuesday under a new moniker: Galleries for the Art of the Arab Lands, Turkey, Iran, Central Asia and Later South Asia. "Islamic art is not just the heritage of the Islamic word, but the heritage of the world," says Haidar, curator and coordinator for the new galleries, when asked of her vision for the new exhibits. "We have to get away from the idea of this monolithic culture of Islam and go toward really embracing diversity." [link]