Ancient and New
How do you interpret ancient Middle Eastern art in a 21st century context? The Cincinnati Art Museum has renovated and updated its Middle East galleries with works arranged thematically, designed to incorporate contemporary reflections on ancient pasts.
“The new galleries do not provide a chronological, geographical, or materially complete presentation of history, nor does it hold those modes of presentation as a goal,” says Dr. Ainsley M. Cameron, Cincinnati Art Museum’s curator of South Asian art, Islamic art & antiquities, and one of the leaders on the project. “Rather, it is a view into the ancient world that is representative of how we see, embody, feel, and experience these ancient civilizations today, located in the American Midwest and situated in a globally connected world.”
After significant physical changes to the Cincinnati Art Museum’s existing 2,800-square-foot ancient Middle East gallery, the galleries are now open to public. The new space showcases works from across the ancient Middle East, including the most significant collection of Nabataean art in the United States.
The majority of the collection has been in storage since 2004 awaiting new gallery space. The reinstallation includes objects displayed for the first time alongside much lauded strengths of the permanent collection to celebrate the art, innovation, and human endeavor from this vast region. This approach presents political, religious, economic, and cultural connections between the network of empires and city-states of the ancient Middle East. The objects and architectural material in the collection represent centuries of trade and cultural exchange that are formative in our understanding of how the region developed.
The museum has long-standing ties with the government of Jordan and has collaborated often with Jordanian scholars and officials to represent the Nabataean civilization to local audiences. Cincinnati has official “Sister City” status with Amman, Jordan.
Architectural changes in the galleries include new visitor pathways through the space, the addition of LED lighting, and new custom-built casework. In addition, new windows allow for more natural light and provide a spectacular view of both the front-facing grounds and interior Alice Bimel Courtyard. Adjacent galleries of South Asian art and the art of the Islamic World are also being renovated with updated lighting, casework, and interpretative approach. They will reopen in the spring.
The ancient Middle East is a vast geographic area that stretches from Turkey to the Indus Valley of present-day Pakistan, and from the Caucasus region to the Arabian Peninsula. The term “ancient Middle East” is often applied to objects made between the Neolithic period (eight millennium BCE) and the end of the Sasanian empire (mid-seventh century AD).
Commissioned by the museum and inspired by the objects on view, the galleries will also feature a new artwork by the artist Shahzia Sikander, titled Caesura. The monumental painted glass commission will occupy the clerestory windows across both sides of the gallery and create dynamic connections between past and present. Sikander is known for innovative works that engage playfully with scale, religion, culture, histories, and iconographies of power. While her own identity connects with Pakistan rather than the countries of the modern Middle East, her practice mines cultural influences and forms that play across this vast region.
“By incorporating a contemporary commission into these ancient galleries, we encourage multiple ways of seeing, reading, and understanding cultures—just as Sikander’s layered work suggests movement, color, density, gesture, and ever-shifting light,” said Dr. Cameron.
The museum’s ancient Middle East collections number more than 1,000 objects, with the monumental architectural fragments from Khirbet et-Tannur, a large Nabataean temple complex located 70 miles north of Petra in present-day Jordan, at its center. The museum is honored to steward the largest collection of Nabataean sculpture outside of Jordan. Khirbet et-Tannur was excavated in 1937 by the Department of Antiquities of Transjordan in collaboration with archaeologist and Cincinnati native Dr. Nelson Glueck.
Relief sculptures depicting deities, carved floral ornamentation, an arch from the central shrine, and terracotta works entered the museum’s collection in 1939, while complementary collections are in The Jordan Museum and the Jordan Archaeological Museum in Amman. Other highlights of the museum’s ancient Middle East collection include lavish royal goods, intricate votive objects, and architectural fragments from the Assyrian, Achaemenid, and Sasanian civilizations, among others.