Plaster bust of Nefertiti with make-up by Loni Baur in the plaster mold of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, photo: Fabian Fröhlich. Via Jewish Museum Hohenems.

From the Jewish Museum Hohenems:

With this exhibition devoted to the “Morgenländer” we are looking at the emergence of Oriental studies in the 19th century and will make a surprising discovery: the development of Islamic studies, Arabic studies and Oriental studies was closely linked to the “Wissenschaft des Judentums”, emancipation and reform.

The new Oriental studies were the scene of a Jewish search for its own origins: Exploring the sources of one’s own culture and history with a self-determined view also served as an attempt to free oneself from the discriminatory grip in a Christian society.

The fact that, from this perspective, Islam and the Arab world by no means appeared as a hostile and exotic “other” of Europe, but rather as a source of European culture, productively challenges many contemporary stereotypes, xenophobic ideas as well as post-colonial black and white thinking.

An exhibition of the Jewish Museum Hohenems

Team

Curator: Felicitas Heimann-Jelinek (Wien)

Co-curator: Dinah Ehrenfreund-Michler (Hohenems)

Exhibiton architecture: Martin Kohlbauer (Wien)

Exhibition graphic design: atelier stecher, Roland Stecher (Götzis)

Graphic design: Thomas Matt Grafikdesign (Rankweil)