WRMEA, August 2010, Pages 58-59

Music & Arts

Leeza Ahmady Lectures on Contemporary Art in Central Asia

Curator Leeza Ahmady [inset “Flighter” by Ulan Djaparov]. (Photos Courtesy AhmadyArts)

AFTER decades of isolation and Soviet rule, vibrant artistic communities are re-emerging in Central Asia. Leeza Ahmady, an independent curator and director of New York's Asian Contemporary Art Week (ACAW), visited the Smithsonian Institution's Freer Gallery in Washington, DC on May 22 to give a special lecture called "The Taste of Others."

Ahmady described her mission as using art as a tool to reconstruct the linguistic, spiritual and cultural ties that economic and political policies have broken down. Her curatorial work seeks to promote the largely unknown artists of her native Afghanistan and the former Soviet republics of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. She began by addressing the widespread misconceptions about this region, which she describes as the "invisible inbetween." Many art institutions still define Asian art as being mostly limited to Eastern Asia, with a recent extension to include India, and Ahmady said she often has to explain to people that Afghanistan shares a border with China.

While progress comes gradually, there are promising signs. ACAW is growing each year, even in these difficult economic times. In 2011, more than 30 New York museums and galleries will participate with exhibits and symposia scheduled for March 24 through March 31. In addition to traditional participants from China, Japan, Korea and Taiwan, ACAW has helped broaden the notion of Asian art to bring in more of the continent, including Central Asia and the Middle East. International art forums also have been receptive. The Venice Biennale, the Olympics of the art world, welcomed its first official entries from Afghanistan and the former Soviet republics in 2005.

While Ahmady is primarily a curator, she punctuated her lecture with some interesting anecdotes about her brief foray into installing her own works at the 2005 show she organized at apexart in lower Manhattan. Also called "The Taste of Others," the exhibit featured a performance work that raised the question of whether New Yorkers would be willing to eat from one plate with their hands with a bunch of strangers. As it turned out, the majority of visitors had no problem sharing the shohla e goshtee, an Afghan dish similar to risotto.

Born in Afghanistan and raised as a young teenager in the United States, the New York-based Ahmady travels widely in Central Asia as part of her ongoing curatorial projects. She performs and teaches a combination of Afghan and Indian dance practices and is a founding member of two nonprofit organizations: NURTURArt Non Profit (USA) and School of Hope (USA/Afghanistan). She is an adviser to arts organizations in Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, and Tajikistan, and the newly established Center for Contemporary Arts Afghanistan (CCAA). Her writings have been published in Asia Art Archive, Art Asia Pacific and Flash Art Magazine.

—Anne O'Rourke