Watson Events

Venetia Porter -- Narratives from the Middle East: The Contemporary Art Collection of the British Museum

"Narratives from the Middle East: The Contemporary Art Collection of the British Museum," with Venetia Porter, Assistant Keeper (Curator), Islamic and contemporary Middle East, the British Museum.

Venetia Porter, curator of Islamic and Middle Eastern art at the British Museum, will talk about the creation of the collection of contemporary Middle Eastern art, the criteria for acquisition and the insights the works can offer into the broader history of the region. 


Venetia Porter is a curator responsible for the collection of Islamic art as well as the collection of the modern and contemporary art of the Middle East. She studied Arabic and Islamic art at Oxford University and obtained her Ph.D on the medieval history and architecture of the Yemen from the University of Durham. Her particular areas of research and interest are Arabic inscriptions, amulets and seals, ceramics and contemporary Middle Eastern art which are the focus of her lectures and publications. In 2006 she curated the exhibition Word into Art: Artists of the Modern Middle East which was shown in the British Museum and in Dubai in 2008. She is currently engaged in the preparation of the exhibition The Hajj:Journey to the Heart of Islam which opens at the British Museum in January 2012.


Cosponsored by the Department of the History of Art & Architecture.

Location: Joukowsky Forum, Watson Institute, 111 Thayer Street.