Renovated Galleries for the Art of Arab Lands, Turkey, Iran, Central Asia and Later South Asia: The Metropolitan Museum of Art , NYC: Part 2

 As I mentioned before, one of the highlights of this gallery is how they display the artworks.  The selling is from Islamic art influenced part of Spain. 

 I love how the sailing ship looked so modern. Almost Marimekko-ish.

 Damascus Room: Syria, Damascus


Another "restored" rooms. The museum did a great job installing computer panels in each of those rooms, which include videos of how the rooms are done, showing videos step by step. It's just amazing. You can see those videos at their HP.

http://www.metmuseum.org/Collections/search-the-collections/140009477

http://blog.metmuseum.org/newgalleries2011/en/

Renovated Galleries for the Art of Arab Lands, Turkey, Iran, Central Asia and Later South Asia: The Metropolitan Museum of Art , NYC

The section opened on November 1st, 2011 after a major renovation. It became one of the "must see"---very well designed, well thought, comprehensive, educational and absolutely beautiful. I had rather little academic knowledge about the art from the region, but I was totally fascinated. Hope the pictures give you some idea.

So sharp. Love how it was displayed. Must have been owned by somebody very special...

There were a lot of people, there had been quite a hype about this gallery---and for reason! 

The way animals depicted were very cute & humorous.

I was very surprised how much those Islamic/Arabic/Middle Eastern art had common with Chinese arts. For example, the bowl above is from somewhere Middle East ( Iran/Mesopotamia? sorry I forgot the detail...) but the picture of the lady looked just like the ones from ancient Chinese Buddhism art.

The lights on the ceiling were so nice and beautiful. Must have been specially designed and ordered.

I

The Met put so much attention to the detail of how they display the artworks. The tile above was held by metal nails, but the tip of the nails were painted with EXACTLY the same color with the background.

 Praying Niche: Iran, Isfahan (above)
 One of the highlight. I was always fascinated by Iranian art, it is sad how the country has been going through really difficult time and it is the place hard to visit....

Moroccan Court, Morocco (part)

One of the absolutely beautiful "re-created" rooms. The decorative details were actually new, done by some artisans who were invited from Morocco for making this room. You can see how they did it on the video (at their HP), it is just amazing.

Surprised to learn that this clothes is for men.

Probably the most beautiful pen case I have ever seen.

Storm King Art Center, New Windsor, NY

A beautiful fall day, one of my friend invited me to visit an outside museum called Storm King Art Center. It is located about 1 1/2 hour from NYC by car. We could not wish for a better weather---it was absolutely beautiful.

 According to their home page, the park was opened to the public in 60's. It started as modern sculpture garden and expanded its collection over time. The museum now have more than 100 sculptures and has 500 acres. It is really awesome to have huge sculptures scattered in the field. The way the huge metal shape the space so freely, interacting with natures beatufly, makes viewers feel good. You can touch and play with some of the sculptures. The pictures below would speak for themselves. Click a photo to enlarge.

http://www.stormking.org/about/