Visiting Curator for Islamic Art
About
Christiane Gruber is a visiting faculty curator at the Kelsey Museum this academic year (2023–2024), working on the conceptualization and implementation of its Byzantine and Islamic Gallery (BIG). She is excited to return to the Kelsey as, in 2014–2015, she curated an exhibition of its Islamic artworks (“Pearls of Wisdom: The Arts of Islam at the University of Michigan”), whose online catalog can be browsed here. Besides serving as curator this year, Gruber is Professor of Islamic Art and Former Chair in the History of Art Department at the University of Michigan, as well as the founding director of Khamseen: Islamic Art History Online. Her scholarly work (available here) explores medieval to contemporary Islamic art, and her public-facing essays have appeared in Newsweek, The Conversation, New Lines, Jadaliyya, and Prospect, among others.
