Review: Reinstallation of the South Asian Galleries

Abstract

Reinstallation of the South Asian Galleries Philadelphia Museum of Art October 2016 Perhaps first among the Philadelphia Museum of Art's many distinctions is the extent to which historic architecture is integrated into its galleries—vestiges, together with period rooms, of director Fiske Kimball's transformation of the institution from a museum of craft to one of contextualized material culture.1 Nowhere is this legacy more evident today than along the approach to the museum's South Asian collection, via the south wing's central galleries, through a series of medieval European architectural ensembles. The eastward turn to the wing's outer arm corresponds to an analogous cultural shift. The view along this axis reveals, in nested succession, a barrel-vaulted Sassanian portal, an archway flanked by Safavid tile work, and finally, the figured granite pillars of a South Indian temple hall (Figure 1). Figure 1 Interior of a pillared temple hall from Madurai, Tamil Nadu, ca. 1550, installed in the South Asian Galleries, Philadelphia Museum of Art, 2016 (photo courtesy Philadelphia Museum of Art). So strong is the pull along this axis of monumental architecture that only the most astute might notice a small doorway—to an introductory gallery—on the right. The rest of us, indulgently, will proceed ahead to the South Asian galleries’ centerpiece: an assemblage of architectural elements from …