The Frick Pittsburgh museum suddenly postponed an exhibition about Islamic art history last month in a decision that some Muslim community members have denounced as “disturbing.”
Just days after Hamas’s October 7 attack, which killed over 1,300 Israelis, and Israel’s subsequent siege and bombardment of Gaza, which has reportedly killed over 9,000 Palestinians, the museum quietly updated its website to announce that the exhibition Treasured Ornament: 10 Centuries of Islamic Art was postponed due to “a scheduling conflict.” The show was scheduled to open on November 4 and is now rescheduled for August 2024, as first reported by the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.
The museum’s statement was decried by local community members who argued that the decision was “under the pretext of potential harm to the Jewish community” and cultivates offensive stereotypes about Muslims and Islamic culture.
“It’s disheartening to witness such insensitivity when blanket statements are made about an entire religion, particularly when they have the potential to incite harm in the Pittsburgh Muslim community,” said Christine Mohamed, executive director of the local chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a nationwide Muslim civil rights and advocacy group.
In response to the Frick Museum’s postponement, CAIR-Pittsburgh said in an October 30 public statement that the museum’s choice reflects a broader Islamophobic idea that “Muslims or Islamic art are synonymous with terrorism or antisemitism.”
Since October 7, many civil rights advocacy groups and experts have reported a surge in hate crimes and bias incidents tied to Islamophobia and antisemitism, including verbal harassment, vandalism, and physical violence. Additionally, many people across industries, including artists and cultural workers, say they’ve faced retaliation and alleged censorship for expressing solidarity with Palestine and condemning Israel’s deadly siege on Gaza.
Spanning 10 centuries of Islamic art and history, the exhibition would have included paintings, glassware, weaving, ceramics, weaponry, and other historic materials and visual artwork.
In an email statement to Hyperallergic, a spokesperson for the Frick explained that the museum staff had made the decision to reschedule the exhibition after realizing, apparently less than a month before the show’s opening, that the Western lens through which the presentation was curated risked painting an inaccurate or offensive portrait of Islamic history and culture.
While the museum representative said that the museum’s decision was not fueled by any political position about Israel’s bombardment of Gaza, the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reported emails from museum leadership sent on October 11 that expressed concerns about how the show would be received by Pittsburgh’s large Jewish population as well as the November 4 opening’s close timing with the anniversary of the October 27, 2018 Pittsburgh synagogue shooting.
The museum told Hyperallergic that the last-minute decision to reschedule the exhibition was due to its lack of “sufficient historical and cultural context” and “participation from the regional Islamic community and others.”
“Presenting the show as originally conceived elsewhere, years ago, risked trivializing Islamic culture at an extraordinarily complex time and turning an intended educational opportunity into a divisive political touchstone, a source of unintended insensitivity or offense, and a distraction from [the museum’s] important service to the entire community,” the spokesperson said. She added that visitors can still see another exhibition, The Red Dress, which features embroidery work by 380 creators, including Palestinian and Ukrainian refugees, and the community project “The Calico Dress.” The museum also apologized for its “clumsy communication” about the rescheduling of Treasured Ornament.
Still, local community members have urged the museum to rethink the postponement and are now campaigning for the arts institution to reverse its decision. Yesterday, November 2, the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) released a statement expressing the organization’s “deep dismay” about the museum’s decision and called on the museum to go through with the original opening as planned.
“It is equally important to recognize that art has the power to bridge divides, foster dialogue, and create mutual understanding. By postponing the exhibition, the museum misses an opportunity to contribute positively to the community,” the organization said in its statement, adding that the Frick Pittsburgh has an opportunity to facilitate important conversations and foster an “inclusive environment” for all its visitors.
“It is our hope that we can collectively move toward greater mutual respect and empathy, particularly in times when understanding and unity are needed the most,” Mohamed of CAIR-Pittsburgh said.
