Navina Najat Haidar is the Nasser Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah Curator in Charge of the Department of Islamic Art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which is currently marking ten years of its permanent galleries. This talk presents a visual introduction to the spaces, objects, and ideas that constitute the galleries, as well as new directions ahead.

Haidar organized the exhibitions Workshop and Legacy: Stanley William Hayter, Krishna Reddy, Zarina Hashmi (2016); Sultans of Deccan India, 1500–1700: Opulence and Fantasy (2015); and Treasures from India: Gems and Jewels in the Al-Thani Collection (2014) at the Met. She was involved in the planning of their permanent galleries for Islamic art, which opened in 2011, and is currently working on a series of new installations to mark their anniversary. Her future projects include an exhibition on the age of the Mughal emperor Jahangir, and a forthcoming book on the pierced window screen (jali) in Islamic architecture.

The annual Stoikov Lecture on Asian Art at the Johnson Museum is funded by a generous gift from Judith Stoikov, Class of 1963, and is cosponsored this year by the Department of the History of Art and the Cornell South Asia Program.