Einladung zum “Torgespräch”
Vortrag im Rahmen der Rudolf-Arnheim-Gastprofessur
in Kooperation des Instituts für Kunst- und Bildgeschichte der Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, der Stiftung Brandenburger Tor und des Deutschen Akademischen Austauschdienstes
Mittwoch, 23. Mai 2012, 20 Uhr
In der Stiftung Brandenburger Tor, Max Liebermann Haus, Pariser Platz 7, 10117 Berlin
Prof. Christiane Gruber
The Praiseworthy One:
Devotional Images of the Prophet Muhammad in Islamic Traditions
Ein Vortrag von Prof. Christiane Gruber Associate Professor of Islamic Art, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, USA
Bitte beachten: Begrenzte Platzkapazität. Für den Einlass gilt das Datum des Eingangsstempels!
Begrüßung
Prof. Monika Grütters
Sprecherin des Vorstands Stiftung Brandenburger Tor
Prof. Dr. Horst Bredekamp
Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin Kunstgeschichtliches Seminar
This talk discusses a number of paintings of the Prophet Muhammad produced in Persian and Turkish lands from the fourteenth to seventeenth century. Ranging from veristic to abstract, these images represent Muhammad’s individual traits, primordial luminosity, and veiled essence. Their pictorial motifs reveal that artists engaged in abstract thought and turned to symbolic motifs in order to imagine Muhammad’s primordial origins and prophetic standing. Artists and viewers alike also were inspired by various mystical beliefs and practices, in the process seeking to express piety through both verbal and pictorial language. Within a variety of Islamic expressive cultures, paintings thus function as a powerful means (among many) for devotional engagement with Muhammad, the “praiseworthy” Prophet and Messenger of Islam.
Rudolf-Arnheim-Gastprofessorin im Sommersemester 2012
Christiane Gruber´s primary field of research is Islamic book arts, paintings of the Prophet Muhammad, and ascension tales and images, about which she has written several books. She also pursues research in Islamic book arts, codicology, and paleography, having authored the online catalogue of Islamic calligraphies in the Library of Congress. Prof. Gruber’s third field of specialization is modern Islamic visual culture and post-revolutionary Iranian visual and material culture. Her research has been supported by a number of grants, including the Max-Planck Foundation. Prof. Gruber has done extensive research in Islamic art collections in America, Europe, Egypt, Turkey, and Iran. From 2008 to 2010, she also served as a board member of the Historians of Islamic Art Association as well as editor of the scholarly listserve H-Islamart.
