Sabiha Al Khemir
Encyclopedia
Sabiha Al Khemir is a Tunis
ian writer, illustrator, and expert in Islamic art
whose work is concerned with cultural bridging and cultural dialogues. She was the founding director of the Museum of Islamic Art in Doha
, Qatar
. She was born in Tunisia
and grew up in Korba
, Tunisia, where she attended Koranic school as a child. She is fluent in and lectures internationally in English, Arabic and French in addition to speaking Italian and Spanish. Her multifaceted approach has been widely recognized.
, with a degree in English Literature
. In 1986 she received an MA (with distinction) in Islamic Art and Archaeology from London University, School of Oriental and African Studies
, and in 1990, a Ph.D. from London University, School of Oriental and African Studies
. In 1990 she was a Post-Doctoral Fellow, University of Pennsylvania
, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Some of her first scholarly activities were evident in her Ph.D. dissertation, ‘The Palace of Sitt al-Mulk and Fatimid Imagery,’ London University, School of Oriental and African Studies, UK, 1990.
Between 1991–1992 Al Khemir was a consultant for the Metropolitan Museum of Art
, New York
for the exhibition ‘Al-Andalus
: Islamic Arts of Spain.’ She traveled in Europe and North Africa in search of objects and history that would provide the basis for the show. "…She wrote a close study of ten examples of Quranic manuscripts to show how different styles of calligraphy developed in the Islamic world…The year of the Al-Andalus show was significant: 1992 was the five-hundredth anniversary of Christopher Columbus's famous voyage in 1492, which was also the year when Islamic rule came to an end on the Iberian peninsula." This experience inspired one of her later essays ‘The Absent Mirror’ first published in ‘Meetings with Remarkable Muslims, Eland Books
, UK, 2005.
In 1992–1993 Al Khemir produced two documentaries broadcast on Channel 4
, UK. From 1993–1996 she was a consultant for the Nour Collection Inc., Khalili Collection of Islamic Art.
She authored a major work on figurative Islamic art (‘Figures and Figurines, Sculpture from the Islamic Lands (7th–19th century); Khalili collection Series, Oxford University Press
and contributed to ‘Seals and Talismans’, Khalili Collection Series (both forthcoming). She was the subject of a short documentary for Central Television, UK, entitled ‘Take 15’ in 1993.
Between 2001-04 she worked internationally as a consultant and also as an Islamic Art Tutor and Lecturer, The British Museum Diploma in Asian Art, London, UK.
She has been recognized for her vision in establishing a program for the museum that emphasizes the contextual place of the art and the educational program that began well before the museum was officially opened in November 2008. She was effective in making the collection grow with the acquisition of a number of unique works of art.
She curated and wrote the catalog (in French, Arabic and English) for the Louvre Exhibition ‘From Córdoba to Samarkand, Masterpieces from the Museum of Islamic Art, Doha’ (2006), the first museum presentation of some of the pieces that would become the core of the museum's permanent collection.
Al Khemir's choices for the exhibition show "all the essential elements of Islamic art: the arabesque, geometry and calligraphy. … It is sublime, but Sabiha Al Khemir wants the objects in the collection, while giving joy, to change our perceptions of Islamic art and correct some common misapprehensions …Sabiha Al Khemir hopes that the manifest beauty of the objects will lead people to a new appreciation of Islamic art, and that this museum will interpret its history and traditions for a modern audience, just as Pei's building finds a contemporary, modernist language for historic Islamic architecture. Thus the collection and building are metaphors for one another."
Al Khemir's drawings have been used as illustrations or as designs for book covers of well-known authors such as Respected Sir by the Nobel Prize winning author Naguib Mahfouz
.
Most are executed in pen and ink where the precision and command of line and the tiny marks of pen point juxtapose the freely expressed world of the story. She has created worlds that reflect the timeless nature of various stories, often classic Islamic tales. Her style alludes to historic Islamic illustration but is totally modern. They are humorous and idiosyncratic.
Her best-known illustrative work is ‘The Island of Animals’, Quartet, London and the University of Texas Press (April 1994). (ISBN 0292740360). Her drawings unite with Denys Johnson-Davis’ translation of this 10th Century Islamic fable about man's responsibilities to animals, adapted from ‘Epistles of the Brethren of Purity,’ ‘The Dispute between Animals and Man.’
Tunis
Tunis is the capital of both the Tunisian Republic and the Tunis Governorate. It is Tunisia's largest city, with a population of 728,453 as of 2004; the greater metropolitan area holds some 2,412,500 inhabitants....
ian writer, illustrator, and expert in Islamic art
Islamic art
Islamic art encompasses the visual arts produced from the 7th century onwards by people who lived within the territory that was inhabited by or ruled by culturally Islamic populations...
whose work is concerned with cultural bridging and cultural dialogues. She was the founding director of the Museum of Islamic Art in Doha
Doha
Doha is the capital city of the state of Qatar. Located on the Persian Gulf, it had a population of 998,651 in 2008, and is also one of the municipalities of Qatar...
, Qatar
Qatar
Qatar , also known as the State of Qatar or locally Dawlat Qaṭar, is a sovereign Arab state, located in the Middle East, occupying the small Qatar Peninsula on the northeasterly coast of the much larger Arabian Peninsula. Its sole land border is with Saudi Arabia to the south, with the rest of its...
. She was born in Tunisia
Tunisia
Tunisia , officially the Tunisian RepublicThe long name of Tunisia in other languages used in the country is: , is the northernmost country in Africa. It is a Maghreb country and is bordered by Algeria to the west, Libya to the southeast, and the Mediterranean Sea to the north and east. Its area...
and grew up in Korba
Korba, Tunisia
Korba, ancient Curubis, is a town in Tunisia on the eastern shore of the Cap Bon. It was the place of exile of the Carthaginian bishop Cyprian in the year leading up to his martyrdom...
, Tunisia, where she attended Koranic school as a child. She is fluent in and lectures internationally in English, Arabic and French in addition to speaking Italian and Spanish. Her multifaceted approach has been widely recognized.
Career
Sabiha Al Khemir graduated in 1982 from the University of Tunis, École Normale SupérieureÉcole Normale Supérieure
The École normale supérieure is one of the most prestigious French grandes écoles...
, with a degree in English Literature
English literature
English literature is the literature written in the English language, including literature composed in English by writers not necessarily from England; for example, Robert Burns was Scottish, James Joyce was Irish, Joseph Conrad was Polish, Dylan Thomas was Welsh, Edgar Allan Poe was American, J....
. In 1986 she received an MA (with distinction) in Islamic Art and Archaeology from London University, School of Oriental and African Studies
School of Oriental and African Studies
The School of Oriental and African Studies is a public research university located in London, United Kingdom and a constituent college of the University of London...
, and in 1990, a Ph.D. from London University, School of Oriental and African Studies
School of Oriental and African Studies
The School of Oriental and African Studies is a public research university located in London, United Kingdom and a constituent college of the University of London...
. In 1990 she was a Post-Doctoral Fellow, University of Pennsylvania
University of Pennsylvania
The University of Pennsylvania is a private, Ivy League university located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Penn is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States,Penn is the fourth-oldest using the founding dates claimed by each institution...
, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Some of her first scholarly activities were evident in her Ph.D. dissertation, ‘The Palace of Sitt al-Mulk and Fatimid Imagery,’ London University, School of Oriental and African Studies, UK, 1990.
Between 1991–1992 Al Khemir was a consultant for the Metropolitan Museum of Art
Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art is a renowned art museum in New York City. Its permanent collection contains more than two million works, divided into nineteen curatorial departments. The main building, located on the eastern edge of Central Park along Manhattan's Museum Mile, is one of the...
, New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
for the exhibition ‘Al-Andalus
Al-Andalus
Al-Andalus was the Arabic name given to a nation and territorial region also commonly referred to as Moorish Iberia. The name describes parts of the Iberian Peninsula and Septimania governed by Muslims , at various times in the period between 711 and 1492, although the territorial boundaries...
: Islamic Arts of Spain.’ She traveled in Europe and North Africa in search of objects and history that would provide the basis for the show. "…She wrote a close study of ten examples of Quranic manuscripts to show how different styles of calligraphy developed in the Islamic world…The year of the Al-Andalus show was significant: 1992 was the five-hundredth anniversary of Christopher Columbus's famous voyage in 1492, which was also the year when Islamic rule came to an end on the Iberian peninsula." This experience inspired one of her later essays ‘The Absent Mirror’ first published in ‘Meetings with Remarkable Muslims, Eland Books
Eland Books
Eland Books is a publishing house, established in 1982, by John Hatt, a former travel editor at Harpers & Queen, that aims to revive the great travel books that have fallen out of print over time. Although the list has diversified out into biography and fiction, the overwhelming majority of the...
, UK, 2005.
In 1992–1993 Al Khemir produced two documentaries broadcast on Channel 4
Channel 4
Channel 4 is a British public-service television broadcaster which began working on 2 November 1982. Although largely commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority , the station is now owned and operated by the Channel...
, UK. From 1993–1996 she was a consultant for the Nour Collection Inc., Khalili Collection of Islamic Art.
She authored a major work on figurative Islamic art (‘Figures and Figurines, Sculpture from the Islamic Lands (7th–19th century); Khalili collection Series, Oxford University Press
Oxford University Press
Oxford University Press is the largest university press in the world. It is a department of the University of Oxford and is governed by a group of 15 academics appointed by the Vice-Chancellor known as the Delegates of the Press. They are headed by the Secretary to the Delegates, who serves as...
and contributed to ‘Seals and Talismans’, Khalili Collection Series (both forthcoming). She was the subject of a short documentary for Central Television, UK, entitled ‘Take 15’ in 1993.
Between 2001-04 she worked internationally as a consultant and also as an Islamic Art Tutor and Lecturer, The British Museum Diploma in Asian Art, London, UK.
Islamic culture and art
Sabiha Al Khemir served as the founding director of the Museum of Islamic Art in Doha, Qatar, from 2006–2008, having joined as a consultant from 2003–2004 when she provided research and documentation for the developing collection. In 2005–2006 she was named the chief curator / acting director.She has been recognized for her vision in establishing a program for the museum that emphasizes the contextual place of the art and the educational program that began well before the museum was officially opened in November 2008. She was effective in making the collection grow with the acquisition of a number of unique works of art.
She curated and wrote the catalog (in French, Arabic and English) for the Louvre Exhibition ‘From Córdoba to Samarkand, Masterpieces from the Museum of Islamic Art, Doha’ (2006), the first museum presentation of some of the pieces that would become the core of the museum's permanent collection.
Al Khemir's choices for the exhibition show "all the essential elements of Islamic art: the arabesque, geometry and calligraphy. … It is sublime, but Sabiha Al Khemir wants the objects in the collection, while giving joy, to change our perceptions of Islamic art and correct some common misapprehensions …Sabiha Al Khemir hopes that the manifest beauty of the objects will lead people to a new appreciation of Islamic art, and that this museum will interpret its history and traditions for a modern audience, just as Pei's building finds a contemporary, modernist language for historic Islamic architecture. Thus the collection and building are metaphors for one another."
Non-fiction
- ‘Figures and Figurines: Sculptures of the Islamic Lands’ Hardcover, Oxford University Press, ISBN 0197276229
- De Cordoue a Samarcande: Chefs d'oeuvre du musée d'art Islamique de Doha. by Sabiha Khemir, Musée du Louvre, ISBN 2350310647
- ‘Mobile Identity and the Focal Distance of Memory,’ Displacement and Difference, Saffron Books, 2002.
- ‘Cairo the Triumphant,’ Institute of International Visual Arts, UK, 1999.
- ‘The Arts of the Book,’ Al-Andalus: Islamic Arts of Spain, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, New York 1992.
Fiction
- The Blue Manuscript, in English, (ISBN 1844673081) Verso, New York and London, (November 17, 2008), weaves a tale about a mythical archaeological dig in Egypt for the magnificent Blue Koran. As the story moves between the 10th Century and Egypt of the 1980s and the layers of the excavation are exposed so, too, are the layers of the personalities of the team, or ‘people of a different clay’ as the locals called them. The Library Journal on November 15, 2008 gave the book a coveted star review saying "The author's pithy and wise observations are rooted in contemporary sociopolitical realities and make this an exceptionally complex, engrossing, and poignant story." John Leonard noted in Harper's: "The Blue Manuscript’ is full of information and historical tidbits as it is of lonely owls, doomed love, rock crystal, grotesque shadows, portentous dreams, peacock eyes, goats and flutes, a love of Arabic, and a fractal theory of Islamic art-a novel as hybrid and heterogeneous, as forgiving and inspiriting, as Ryszard Kapuscinski's `cultural hospitality’."
- ‘Waiting In the Future for The Past to Come’, in English (ISBN 0704370484, Hardcover, March 1, 1994, Interlink Pub Group Inc.,) is "lyric and sensual." It follows the early life of a young Tunisian girl as she makes her way in the world. She moves between East and West, is educated in England and returns to her small town for a celebration of her own success to discover she is a person of the world not just of one place or time. It is an emotional work but as Middle East International noted, "…where the book really scores, however, is evoking the small-town atmosphere and changing values of Tunisia during the last gasp of the French Protectorate…For this alone it deserves to be in the suitcase of every foreign visitor..."
Art work
In her first published creative work as young illustrator, she contributed at age 15 to ‘L’Ogresse’ (Edition Maspero, Paris, 1975) and fully illustrated ‘Le Nuage Amoureux’ at age 18 (Edition Maspero, Paris, 1978).Al Khemir's drawings have been used as illustrations or as designs for book covers of well-known authors such as Respected Sir by the Nobel Prize winning author Naguib Mahfouz
Naguib Mahfouz
Naguib Mahfouz was an Egyptian writer who won the 1988 Nobel Prize for Literature. He is regarded as one of the first contemporary writers of Arabic literature, along with Tawfiq el-Hakim, to explore themes of existentialism. He published over 50 novels, over 350 short stories, dozens of movie...
.
Most are executed in pen and ink where the precision and command of line and the tiny marks of pen point juxtapose the freely expressed world of the story. She has created worlds that reflect the timeless nature of various stories, often classic Islamic tales. Her style alludes to historic Islamic illustration but is totally modern. They are humorous and idiosyncratic.
Her best-known illustrative work is ‘The Island of Animals’, Quartet, London and the University of Texas Press (April 1994). (ISBN 0292740360). Her drawings unite with Denys Johnson-Davis’ translation of this 10th Century Islamic fable about man's responsibilities to animals, adapted from ‘Epistles of the Brethren of Purity,’ ‘The Dispute between Animals and Man.’
Exhibitions
- 2009, Adair Margo Gallery, El Paso, Texas;
- 2006, ‘Word into Art’, The British Museum, UK;
- 1999–2000, ‘Dialogues of the Present’, (touring exhibition), UK;
- 1998, Zamana Gallery, London, UK;
- 1993-95, National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, D.C. (also included tour within the US);
- 1993, 1987–88, Kufa Gallery, London, UK;
- 1980, Beaubourg Pompidou Centre, Paris, FR.
External links
- http://encyclopedia.jrank.org/articles/pages/5784/Khemir-Sabiha-1959.html