Masterclass: Professor Michael Barry at Inalco's Maison de la Recherche

28 February 2023

Foundation

Michael Barry needs no introduction to those interested in Afghanistan. His career as a man of culture and a man of action is exceptional (professor at the American University in Kabul, professor at Princeton, Islamic art consultant at MoMA, among others). Since the 1980s, he has lived as close as possible to Afghanistan, whose culture he knows intimately, and whose historical convulsions he portrays in his works, endeavoring to place them in the widest possible context.
Visuel conférence de Michael Barry à la Maison de la Recherche de l'Inalco
"Procession funéraire vers le cimetière de Gâzor-Gâh, à Hérât", peinture de Behzâd, 1487 © Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York‎

Professor Michael Barry's latest book, the Cri afghan was published by L'Asiathèque on October 13.

His talk at Inalco's Maison de la recherche on October 25, 2021 will be entitled:
"An operation of urgent safeguard: teaching in war their high Afghan culture to young Afghans - in Kabul then here."

With projections of the country's ancient and medieval art, around the theme of the meeting of Alexander and the Indian sages: from the carved Greco-Buddhist wonders of Hadda (3rd c. AD, but now destroyed by the Haqqânî group), to the miniatures of Behzâd de Hérât (15th c., of which we exhibited - and they were revelations for the Afghan public - magnificent state-of-the-art reproductions on metal (made by Dupon in Paris) at the Royal Castle of Hérât and at our University in Kabul from 2018 onwards (both institutions now cloistered by the Tâlebân, while the young woman recently appointed as curator of the Castle of Hérât is now holed up, forbidden to work.)

This theme will provide a common thread running through the country's diverse destinies, from antiquity to our terrible days.

As Inalco and its Foundation are committed to receiving Afghan academics and students, we thought it would be useful to place this action in the flow of time.

Participation on registration.

Contact: fondation@inalco.fr