Symposium on Islamic Art

Participants in the opening ceremony of the Third Biennial Hamad bin Khalifa Symposium on Islamic Art, which ran from Nov. 2 to 4 in Cordoba, Spain, (from left to right): Michael Rao, president of VCU; Sheila Blair and Jonathan Bloom, symposium organizers and shared holders of the Hamad bin Khalifa Endowed Chair of Islamic Art at VCU; Allyson Vanstone, dean of the VCU School of the Arts in Qatar; Andrés Ocaña Rabadán, mayor of the city of Cordoba; José Manuel Roldán Nogueras, rector of the University of Cordoba; Richard Toscan, vice provost for international affairs and dean of the VCU School of the Arts; McKenna Brown, executive director of the Office of International Education at VCU; and Abdulla Al-Thani, vice president of education for the Qatar Foundation.

This year's symposium, which was titled "And Diverse Are Their Hues: Color in Islamic Art and Culture," featured 13 speakers from the Middle East, Europe, Australia and the United States. The symposium, the world's foremost symposium on Islamic art, was co-sponsored by the Virginia Commonwealth University School of the Arts, the VCU School of the Arts in Qatar and the Qatar Foundation.