How the Saudi strike on a journalist assaults art

Oct 16, 2018, 6:29 AM EDT
The Metropolitan Museum of Art engages in cross-cultural exchanges with Saudi-funded institutions.
(Source: Sagie/flickr)

The repercussions of the alleged killing of a dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi inside the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul a few days back don’t fail to breach the boundaries of the Middle East art in the U.S.

A host of American museums and institutions, including the Brooklyn Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Guggenheim among others, which are collaborating with organizations linked to Saudi Arabia or funded by the Kingdom, find themselves at a crossroad, notes The New York Times.

American museums are faced with an unsparing dilemma - whether to participate and engage with organizations funded by a regime accused of orchestrating a journalist’s murder or to bow down to a wealthy patron accepting its misdeeds as an inescapable reality.

Amid global outrage, the dynamics of this cross-cultural exchange is bound to experience a stress, but it won’t be surprising if the museums cling to their Saudi collaborations. Nevertheless, the “museums are forced to reassess Saudi ties amid uproar over journalist’s fate.”