Islamic Art at the Asian Civilisations Museum, Singapore

Abstract

A special exhibition at the Asian Civilisations Museum, Singapore, “Islamic Arts from Southeast Asia: Highlights of the Asian Civilisations Museum” held from July 7, 2012 to January 20, 2013 was, to the author’s knowledge, only the third major exhibition in the world to focus on aspects of Islamic art formed in Southeast Asia. Along with the Islamic Arts Museum Malaysia, Singapore’s Asian Civilisations Museum (hereinafter ACM, fig. 1) is one of a few museums in Southeast Asia which holds a number of high-quality Islamic art objects and has a permanent space to exhibit them. The significance of these museums cannot be overemphasized because they house collection of Islamic art objects produced in East Asia and Southeast Asia which are rarely found in major Islamic art collections in the US and Europe. In the study of Islamic art history, which has focused on Islamic art and architecture formed in the heartland of the Islamic world from Spain to Central Asia, issues related to Islamic art in East Asia and Southeast Asia have tended to be regarded as peripheral. Therefore, the subject of the exhibition “Islamic Arts from Southeast Asia: Highlights of the Asian Civilisations Museum” can shed new light on the history of Islamic art and encourage further investigation of this particular aspect. Based on the author’s trip to Singapore in September 2012, this paper aims to describe the characteristics of the Islamic art exhibition at the ACM and to understand the policy and purpose behind it.

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