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Leeza Ahmady is originally from Afghanistan. She is an independent art curator and educator from Central Asia. She is based in New York and, as the director of Asian Contemporary Art Week (ACAW) at Asia Society (2005-present), Ahmady brings together leading New York City museums and galleries to participate in special exhibitions, receptions, lectures, and performances citywide. Ahmadys name is directly linked to The Taste of Others project, which began in 2005 and continues to feed her practice to this day. A performance-based exhibition first launched at Apexart New York, The Taste of Others is an on-going educational program that connects contemporary artists from Central Asia to artists, professionals, and institutions in other parts of the world. Through Dialogues in Contemporary Art (DCA) in collaboration with Independent Curators International (ICI) and ARTonAIR.org, Ahmady conducts interviews with artists, curators, critics, and experts working across a broad field of contemporary art. The program addresses the role of artists, curators, and other art professionals in an increasingly borderless world, investigating the ways in which artistic practices, curatorial strategies, and critical commentary have been reconfigured by intensified patterns of global circulation. Most recently through her role as an agent and member of the curatorial team for dOCUMENTA(13), Ahmady traveled to Kabul in February 2012 to present a series of workshops in anticipation of the exhibitions in Kassel and Kabul Summer 2012. The workshops covered art theory, perspectives on international contemporary art, and the building of a critical art magazine. Ahmady also serves as the Director and Co-curator of Visual Arts for an upcoming citywide program of contemporary art from Cambodia in New York City (Spring 2013). Through a series of artist residencies, site specific installations and public programming, the project aims to build critical spaces of engagement with contemporary artists and practices from Cambodia. There is so much more to say about Leeza Ahmady, and for that reason please make sure and read Part 2 of this ongoing discussion, which will post next month. Perhaps of all the interviews Ive done for this column, Ive found the greatest inspiration in Ahmadys sense of dedication. Its an honor to present to you independent curator Leeza Ahmady.
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Georgia Kotretsos: For someone who claims to always be working with a mapand Im referring to myselfas I had casually accepted the marginal role in art that a big part of the known world is said to play. I am speaking about Central Asia: Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan & Afghanistan. At the March meeting 2011 in Sharjah, you generously shed light on my obliviousness, and today, I am inviting you to start our discussion by taking you back to the very beginning of your extensive research and curatorial work. What motivated your interest in these regions? Leeza Ahmady: History is a remarkable instrument for comprehension. Let us consider the term marginal; how stable is it as an idea in retrospect to history? Much of what was deemed marginal at some point in the past is mainstream today; i.e. the Impressionists, Dadaists, Performance Art, Chinese contemporary art, and so on. Beyond human reckoning, this is universal physics. Pendulums swing in different directions. That which is marginal shifts to the center, and vice versa. I prefer the term periphery; it acknowledges complexities of this world where the art world itself is peripheral. In my years of work in the field, I have come to view the art world as a giant fragmented and unconscious machine incapable of discretion. Lets think about this: can an unconscious body consciously marginalize? It is the individuals who make a difference, and so much depends on awareness. To become conscious of something different, beyond what we already grasp, we must make a different kind of effort. Questioning ones own intellectual and cultural programming is difficult; trying to achieve this on a collective scale is a colossal task. Yet critical observation and the breaking down of ones conceptual mechanisms is the minimum requirement for change. As art professionals all that we do is part of the art world machinery, this interview included. The notion that there are authorities acting in cohesion to grant or to deny opportunities underrates and belittles distinct historical time lines, experiences, and circumstances of individual artists and artist communities in different parts of the world. Indeed, museum directors, institutional curators, educators, and biennial foundations must make it a priority to more seriously and inclusively inform themselves on artistic practices worldwide. This will involve including and accounting for other geographies, histories, narratives and timelines in their respective programs. Let us not forget that Europe, for instance, boasts a healthy art system that contributed to the development and exhibition of contemporary art and artists as a result of decades of local, regional, and international collaborations and institutional relationships that began in the post-World War II era. dOCUMENTA being a prime example.
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Significant things often begin in peripheries where there is room to reinvent, to take risks, to experiment and to push boundaries. My own career began in one of the peripheries of the New York art world: the club scene. I often have flashbacks of keeping art works intact from tipsy club-hoppers installed inside of every nook and cranny of the Tunnel hallways (a subway station turned mega-nightclub). Extravaganza type one-night art events have been frequently staged in nightclubs for decades, becoming especially popular in the post-Warholian late 1990s. But that model quickly felt insufficient when juxtaposed with the onslaught of new contemporary artists flocking to New York in the late 1990s. Thus, inside the infamous Limelight club (formerly a church), I set out to launch three weeklong exhibitions that would be open to the public during the day. This permitted me to invite museum curators and gallery owners to collaborate on projects they would not have been able to realize at their own venues because of various limitations. Those years proved formidable in informing my curatorial practice, a great deal of which has to do with mastering the art of communicationan ability to weave a tapestry of otherwise improbable and fascinating people, concepts, and artistic practices. Ten years down the line, the Tunnel is now a legitimate art space, transformed into one of Chelseas sprawling new gallery complexes, while going to an opening at MoMA feels more like stepping into a wonderful nightclub. Thats a phenomenon! Was there some pioneering of a sort, or was I simply in the midst of a swinging pendulum? Peripheries have their own sets of challenges, naiveties, and failures, so there came a moment when I had to stop and contemplate what I really wanted to accomplish. My focus on Central Asia is logically autobiographical. I grew up listening to classical music, epic tales, and poetry fused with daily political debates between my family members. From my parents, and the Afghan collective, I inherited an intense awareness of the world with the premise that it was whole and connected, and that I was at its center just as powerfully as anyone else. This hypothesis broke down upon my arrival in New York as a young teenager. Almost no one my age had ever heard of the country. It was a disappointing and baffling reality, which in turn initiated my interest in the psychological make-up of collective societies. At the age of 20, standing in front of a Giotto painting at the Uffizi, beyond aesthetics, I was floored by its liveliness, and communication. I thought Wow, there must be artists making revealing works like this everywhere now and I want to know them. I decided to study art and work with artists in that instant.
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Mithu Sen. "MOU, Museum of Unbelongings," 2012. Site-specific installation, fabric and found objects. Courtesy of the artist.
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Vyacheslav Akhunov. "Art-cheology," 1976. Drawing on manuscript page. Courtesy the artist and AhmadyArts.
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Posted in: > Inside the Artist's Studio Similar posts: Inside the Artists Studio: Leeza Ahmady (Part 2) , Gwangju Biennale , New guest blogger: Naomi Beckwith , Inside the Artists Studio | Sofa Hernndez Chong Cuy , Inside the Artists Studio | Abdellah Karroum Comments (3)
3 Responses to Inside the Artists Studio | Leeza Ahmady (Part 1) Inside the Artists Studio: Leeza Ahmady (Part 2) | Art21 Blog on August 3, 2012 11:00 am [...] am pleased to share with you the second half of my discussion with Leeza Ahmady, a continuation of Aprils [...]
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Inside the Artists Studio: Leeza Ahmady (Part 2) | Uber Patrol - The Definitive Cool Guide on August 3, 2012 11:20 am [...] am pleased to share with you the second half of my discussion with Leeza Ahmady, a continuation of Aprils [...]
Ahmady Arts | Blog | Interviews, Projects and Articles on August 30, 2012 12:38 pm [...] Do Peripheries Become Center? An Interview with Leeza Ahmady Art: 21 Inside the Artists Studio Part I April, 2012 [...]
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