East and West. Oriental and Occidental. Never have they been more engaged—more belligerently different and yet interdependent. This exhibition acknowledges recent attacks on the 19th-century art movement called Orientalism, fantasy representations that fed stereotypes, sexualized the East, and waylaid truth. But it goes much further back—to the 1500s—to trace a history of positive influence, inspiration, and aesthetic exchange. —L.J.
Inspired by the East: How the Islamic World Influenced Western Art
British Museum
Great Russell St, Bloomsbury, London WC1B 3DG, UK
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