Screenings at Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

January 24, 2013 - filed under Announcements,Upcoming Events   

Akhtar Maskara (Akhtar the Joker) 1980, Latif Ahmadi

History of Histories: Afghan Films 1960-Present
Screening Program at The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

Organized by Leeza Ahmady and Mariam Ghani
Fridays, March 1 thru April 5, 2013
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
Fifth Avenue at 89th Street
 
In conjunction with No Country: Regarding South and Southeast Asia, the first exhibition of the Guggenheim UBS MAP Global Art Initiative, The Guggenheim Museum presents a series of programs dedicated to Afghan cinema and film production selected by independent curator Leeza Ahmady and artist Mariam Ghani.

Fridays, March 1, 15, 22, and 29, 2 pm
Approximate runtime for each screening: 170 minutes
Introduction by Leeza Ahmady and Mariam Ghani on March 1 and March 29

All screenings are free with museum admission.

2-5pm, Friday, March 1 and March 22

Selections from the Afghan Films archive, 1967-80
In a series of select newsreels, documentary and propaganda shorts, and feature film clips drawn from the archive of Afghan Films, Afghanistan’s national film institute, the changing fashions, mores and politics of the constantly reconfigured state are reflected.

Khan-e-Tarikh (The House of History), 1996 Directed by Qader Tahiri
The only documentary produced by Afghan Films during the civil war years, The House of History is an intensely personal essay film that chronicles the destruction of Kabul during the civil war, followed by a meditation on the ruin of Kabul’s archaeological museum and the efforts to save fragments left behind after its destruction in 1991.

Fiction shorts by the Jump Cut Film Collective, 2009-10
The Jump Cut Film Collective was founded in Kabul in 2009 by a group of young independent filmmakers who share both production duties and formal concerns. In the Name of Opium (dir. Sayed Jalal Hussaini) employs a non-traditional, circular narrative structure and no dialogue, while strong cinematography sets up a series of memorable images, each a part of a larger opium-driven vicious cycle.

Feature: Akhtar Maskara (Akhtar the Joker), 1980 Directed by Latif Ahmadi
A stinging social critique of the gap between rich and poor, old and new Kabulis at the end of the 1970s, and the story of an unusual young man who falls into the cracks in between. Sharp cinematography, a twisting plot, and occasional breaks where the unreliable narrator addresses the camera directly, give it a quality unlike anything else in Afghan cinema.

2-5pm, Friday, March 15 and March 29

Doc shorts from Ateliers Varan Kabul, 2011
Ateliers Varan, the documentary training program initiated by direct cinema pioneer Jean Rouch, has operated workshops in Kabul since 2006. The shorts Dusty Night and The Postman observe the rituals and rhythms of the city without judgment or commentary, unless offered by the participants observed.

Fiction shorts by the Jump Cut Film Collective, 2009-10
The early shorts from Jump Cut, ANT (dir. Hashem Didari) and Devious (dir. Sayed Jalal Hussaini), display a preoccupation with the use of non-linear temporal structures, as well as their interest in the illegal and informal economies, and the petty and not so petty thefts, grifts and deceits that spring from the inequities and poverty of Kabul.

Feature: Kabuli Kid, 2009 Directed by Barmak Akram
In writer-director Barmak Akram’s debut feature, the life of cab driver Khaled (Hadji Gul) is thrown for a loop when he discovers that his last passenger left an infant boy in the back seat. Khaled embarks on a chaotic adventure from one end of war-torn Kabul to the other to find the mother. (Kabuli Kid will be screened on March 15 only!)

Feature: Mujasemaha Mekhandan (The Sculptures Are Laughing), 1976, Directed by Toryalai Shafaq
The deliriously paced story of an artist who falls in love with a spoiled rich girl, who marries a gangster who draws both his bride and her former love into his wacky schemes. A window into life in Daoud’s republic, from art school to fashion shows to house parties to weddings. (Mujasemaha Mekhandan will be screened on March 29 only!)

6:30-8:30 pm, Friday, April 5

BARMAK AKRAM: THE KABULI KID
A Discussion with the Filmmaker and Screening of Wajma (An Afghan Love Story)

A special one-time screening of Wajma (An Afghan Love Story), the most recent film written and directed by Barmak Akram (b. 1966, Kabul) that follows the clandestine relationship of gregarious waiter Mustafa and pretty student Wajma. Beginning as a playful and passionate affair, after Wajma discovers she is pregnant the consequences of the societal rules the pair has broken rapidly unfold. Awarded the World Cinema Dramatic Screenwriting prize at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival. Following the screening, Leeza Ahmady and Mariam Ghani join Akram in a discussion about filmmaking in Afghanistan, as well as the historic context and themes of cinema from the region. Program concludes with a reception and exhibition viewing of No Country: Contemporary Art for South and Southeast Asia.

FREE with advance registration at guggenheim.org/MAP.


IN RESIDENCE New York City

January 24, 2013 - filed under Announcements,Upcoming Events   

Visual Art Section: Season of Cambodia, A Living Arts Festival

Savy Sareth 'Mon Boulet,' 2011. Metal 200cm sphere

April 1 through May 31, 2013

Co-Curated by Leeza Ahmady and Erin Gleeson.

IN RESIDENCE is a citywide visual arts program centered on two-month residencies for 10 visual artists and 1 curator from Cambodia to live and work in New York; complimented by a dynamic map of public programs at major New York City institutions; including solo exhibitions, open studios, symposiums, and conversations with artists and curators most critically involved in shaping Cambodia’s unique contemporary art scene.

IN RESIDENCE invites audiences to engage with new perspectives on Cambodia’s history and contemporaneity. For decades, Cambodia has been subject to international field research – a practice that has largely shaped distanced, third person perspectives around the nation’s occupied and traumatic histories. In the last decade, it is largely Cambodia’s local and diaspora visual artists who, by giving form to their experiences, are responsible for anchoring critical first-person perspectives.

The selected artists work across a range of practices including drawing, sculpture, installation, photography, video, and performance. Born between 1970 and 1987 – either during the U.S. military bombing campaign, the Khmer Rouge era, or Vietnamese occupation – the artists interpret their histories from different angels while many also respond to current cultural changes forced by globalization.

The festival’s contemporary artists’ lineup includes internationally renowned artists Sopheap Pich, Rattana Vandy, Samnang Khvay and Seckon Leang, as well as leading regional and local figures Sokchanlina Lim, Amy Lee Sanford, Sareth Svay, Sok Than, Kanitha Tith, Lyno Vuth, Maline Yim, and New York-based Pete Pin.

Residency Partners: Asia Art Archive in America, Asian Cultural Council, Bose Pacia, Bronx Museum of the Arts, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, and Residency Unlimited (RU), and Casita Maria Center for Arts and Education

Public Program Partners: Asia Society and Museum, Arts Brookfield, BAM, Cornell University, ICI (Independent Curators International), Metropolitan Museum of Art, Parsons The New School of Design, Tyler Rollins Fine Art

Media Partner: ArtAsiaPacific

 

ArteEast 2012 Benefit Auction & Reception

October 19, 2012 - filed under Announcements,Upcoming Events   

 

BUY TICKETS

Tickets will be available at a reduced rate of $125 till the day of the event, so we are urging people to buy now!

The silent and live auction includes works generously donated by artists:

Adel Abidin, Haig Aivazian, Abbas Akhavan, Jananne Al Ani, Tarek Al-Ghoussein, Daniele Genadry, Pouran Jinchi, John Jurayj, Nadia Kaabi-Linke, Mohammed Kazem, Huda Lutfi, Jumana Manna, Suleiman Mansour, Nabil Nahas, Ibrahim Quraishi, Michael Rakowitz, Zenib Sedira, Hassan Sharif, and Raed Yassin

Online bidding begins on November 19th through Paddle 8 ( www.paddle8.com/forgood/arteeast) and includes a “buy now” option that makes the auction available to international buyers who might not be able to attend the event in New York.

All proceeds to benefit ArteEast Residencies and Commissions

Please visit ArteEast Event Page for more information.

Interviews, Projects and Articles

August 30, 2012 - filed under Uncategorized   

 

 

Recent/Upcoming

 

Do Peripheries Become Center? An Interview with Leeza Ahmady

Art: 21 Inside the Artist’s Studio

Artist & writer Georgia Kotretsos interviewed Leeza Ahmady as part of the monthly Art: 21 Blog, Inside the Artist’s Studio, (published in two part April and August 2012) about her curatorial work spanning over a decade of exhibitions, research, and public programs that are collaborative by design, and centered on creating educational experiences for the public around the practices of diverse artists and arts organizations in the US and abroad. In addition to subjects such as studio visits as forms of exhibition, art, history, and illusions about peripheries and centers, the interview includes reflections on triumphs and woes of dOCUMENTA (13) Kabul Seminars and Exhibition, in retrospect to Ahmady’s recent role, as member of dOCUMENTA (13) Agents team.

Part I April, 2012

Part II August, 2012
Art in A Bordered Up City: Kabul, Afghanistan
ICI Dispatch

Septembert 24th thru November 24th

As part of Independent Curators International (ICI) online journal, Dispatch, Ahmady will download her  insights, reflections, predictions, and lingering inquiries as experienced during two comprehensive trips to Kabul in 2012 (Feb. & June). Bearing witness to the full gamut of cultural production, Ahmady caught sight of both current realities and possible futures for visual and performing arts, film, music, and historic preservation.  Through contributions of texts, anecdotes, images, audio and video clips, this Dispatch will present readers a poetic glimpse into the many exciting artists and initiatives happening on the ground in Afghanistan, with the aim of inspiring further, deeper engagement and research endeavors by others.

 

Dialogues in Contemporary Art: John Menick and Yusuf Misdaq

Take 3 @

ICI, Tuesday October 16th, 7-8:30 pm

401 Broadway, Suite 1620 New York, NY 10013

In what promises to be yet another invigorating discussion, Ahmady, brings together John Menick and Yusuf Misdaq. Two brilliant artists with very different backgrounds whose individual perspectives on artistic activity allow for the making of heartfelt works that are simultaneously process based, conceptually vigorous, and seamlessly span across mediums: writing, sound, film, and more.

 

Dialogues in Contemporary Art: Murtaza Vali

Take 4 @

ICI, Tuesday December 4th, 7-8:30 pm

401 Broadway, Suite 1620 New York, NY 10013

 Murtaza Vali speaks about the multiplicity of his practice as he persistently blurs the lines between writer, critic and curator.  An Indian citizen having never lived in India, Vali’s position based between the UAE and US informs his work and may catalyze his role as guest curator for the 2013 Abraaj Capital Art Prize, the only art prize dedicated to artists from the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia.

 

In Residence

Cambodia: Artist Residencies April through May 2013

Co-curated as part of Season of Cambodia – a multi-disciplinary arts festival in NYC. New perspectives on history and contemporaneity through a dynamic map of artists’ residencies most critically involved in shaping Cambodia’s unique contemporary art scene. Nine select artists and one curator, both male and female, local and diaspora, will spend two months in residencies throughout NYC (Bose Pacia, LMCC, Residency Unlimited, and more). Working across a range of practices and born between 1970 and 1987, during the US military bombing campaign, the Khmer Rouge era and Vietnamese occupation, the artists interpret their common legacy of survival from personal and historical angles, while addressing cultural changes and the effects of urban development. Complementing the interactive scope of the residency program will be a series of open studio events, installations, screenings, public conversations, and performances.

 

Listen to:

 Dialogues in Contemporary Art, Past Takes

Leeza Ahmady And Mariam Ghani on their dOCUMENTA (13) Notebooks-Vyacheslav Akhunov and Afghanistan: A Lexicon

Hitomi Iwasaki Asia & Herb Tam: Asia & The Caribbean

 

 

In Conversation at Asian Art Museum San Francisco

July 8, 2012 - filed under Upcoming Events   


Artist Mariam Ghani speaks to independent curator Leeza Ahmady about the phantoms in her work, from the specters of real but repressed histories, to the horrors that haunt the edges of present politics, to the conceivable but unrealized futures that manifest as possible spaces hovering above or alongside actual, traversable spaces. Ghani and Ahmady will also discuss their work in Afghanistan, sharing their perspectives on their participation in dOCUMENTA (13)’s initiative in Kabul and Bamiyan, which included a series of seminars (Feb-June) and an exhibition at the Bagh-e-Babur Gardens in Kabul.

Ghani’s work addresses the intersections of place, memory, history, language, and loss, as seen in her recent video installation A Brief History of Collapses, commissioned by dOCUMENTA (13). The two-channel video traverses the ruined Dar-ul Aman Palace in Kabul and the restored Museum Fridericianum in Kassel, Germany in two parallel courses, in order to explore both similarities and differences in their structures, histories and myths. Ghani’s research-based practice also informs her recent publication Afghanistan: A Lexicon, a nonlinear history of 20th-century Afghanistan, and her Sharjah Biennial 10 commission The Trespassers, a video, sound and archive installation that examines the overlaps between translation, treason and trespass in the ‘global war on terror.’

Ahmady’s recent dynamic role as part of the dOCUMENTA (13) Agents team involved leading a series of workshops in Kabul spanning art theory, perspectives on international contemporary art, and the building of a critical art magazine. Noted for her ongoing curatorial efforts to contextualize and exhibit works of Central Asian artists, Ahmady is at the forefront of an influx of activities in the region, paving the way for extended opportunities for artists in their home countries and abroad. Since 2005, she has been the director of Asian Contemporary Art Week (ACAW), a biennial event initiated by Asian Contemporary Art Consortium (ACAC), New York, comprising a series of special exhibitions, lectures, and performances at leading city museums and galleries such as the Asia Society, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, and the Museum of Modern Art.

Asian Art Museum
Samsung Hall
200 Larkin St.
San Francisco, CA 94102
USA

 

An event of ACAC San Francisco:

 

Artist / Agent Conversations at dOCUMENTA (13)

May 29, 2012 - filed under Announcements,Upcoming Events   

Artist / Agent Conversations at dOCUMENTA (13)

Kassel, Germany

Mariam Ghani, still from A Brief History of Collapses, 2011-12.

For 100 days, over 150 artists from 55 countries, and other participants from around the world, will gather and present artworks of all mediums, curatorial projects, as well as other objects and experiments in the fields of art, politics, literature, philosophy, and science.

Please join dOCUMENTA (13) Agent and Independent Curator, Leeza Ahmady as she speaks with participating artists about their commissions, and projects during opening days of the exhibition.

As part of the Maybe Education and Public Programs, a program of talks between agents and artists will be taking place during the opening week, June 6-10th, 2012.  These talks are intended to activate the exhibition spaces of dOCUMENTA (13) and open dialogues with the many participants of the project and its diverse audiences.   Scheduled every hour, on a small mobile stage in the proximity of the artistic project.

Thursday, June 7th @ 4 PM: Barmak Akram

Afghan artist and filmmaker Barmak Akram will discuss his installation consisting of the presentation of a selection of his “phyto-morphic” cuttings from popular press, accompanied by a new video installation shot mid-way between Kabul and Bamiyan. (Karlsaue Park)

Friday, June 8th @ 2:30 PM: Sopheap Pich

Cambodian artist Sopheap Pich creates biomorphic sculptures and installations that address issues of time, memory, and the body, often relating to his childhood memories of life during the Khmer Rouge period. Pich and Ahmady will discuss his new “Relief” paintings, a series of rattan and bamboo works that recall his original training as a painter.   (Fridericianum)

Friday, June 8th @ 7 PM: Masood Kamandy

Masood Kamandy will talk about his project Superpositional.  The installation, which takes its title from particle physics, explores the collapsing of time and space through the photographic process. (Oberste Gasse 4)

Saturday, June 9th @ 6 PM: Khadim Ali

Khadim Ali creates intense collage-like miniature paintings which convey the complex history of Afghanistan.  Ali and Ahmady will discuss his project “Haunted Lotus,” a four-panel work that incorporates scenes from the Persian epic Shahnameh and classical miniature techniques to allude to the persecution of Hazara people by the Taliban and the destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas. (Neue Galerie)

Monday, June 10th @ 1 PM: Mariam Ghani

Mariam Ghani will discuss her latest video installation commissioned by dOCUMENTA (13), which takes as its subjects the ruined Dar-ul Aman Palace in Kabul, and the restored Museum Fridericianum in Kassel.  The two-channel video installation A Brief History of Collapses, traverses the two buildings in parallel courses to explore both similarities and differences in their structures, histories, and myths. (Friericianum)

Also, do not miss viewing work by artists Vyacheslav Akhunov, Amar Kanwar, Wael Shawky, Michael Rackowitz, Rahraw Omarzad, Zalmai, Tejal Shaw, and Bani Abadi at dOCUMENTA (13).

For more information about these conversations and Ahmady’s other dOCUMENTA (13) related projects please contact us at info@ahmadyarts.com

For more information about dOCUMENTA (13) please visit: http://d13.documenta.de/#to-visit/ 

 

May 25, 2012 - filed under Announcements   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

dOCUMENTA (13) “100 Thoughts – 100 Notes”

Vyacheslav Akhunov, with an introduction by Leeza Ahmady

Released in April 2012

During the Soviet regime, the artist, author, and philosopher Vyacheslav Akhunov hid his notebooks in stables and barns, in murals and matchboxes. For the artist, the notebook is an autonomous artistic medium. Between 1973 and 2000, he archived more than three thousand of his ironic, visionary drawings and collages on paper for two hundred projects. In this notebook, one finds excerpts from works dated between 1974 and 1982. Leeza Ahmady’s introduction to Akhunov’s drawings and collages, which the artist refers to as “art-facts,” interprets and reveals these as sensitive forebodings of the fall of the socialist era and as a contemporary document conceived to outlast the present. Vyacheslav Akhunov was born in 1948 in Osh, Kyrgyzstan. Leeza Ahmady is a freelance curator living in New York; she is the director of the New York Asian Contemporary Art Week and Agent of dOCUMENTA (13).

To order a copy of this and other exciting dOCUMENTA (13) notebooks, visit Hatje Cantz in Europe and ARTBOOK in the USA.

Dialogues in Contemporary Art: Take 2 @ ICI

April 19, 2012 - filed under Upcoming Events   

Dialogues in Contemporary Art: Take 2

Tuesday, May 8, 2012, 7:00 pm-8:30 pm @ Independent Curators International Curatorial Hub, 401 Broadway, Suite 1620, New York, NY 10013

Artist Mariam Ghani and Independent Curator and dOCUMENTA (13) Agent Leeza Ahmady speak about their contributions to the dOCUMENTA (13) “100 Notes- 100 Thoughts” notebook series, and share their perspectives on the recent influx of international art activities in Kabul, Afghanistan. This event will also launch Ghani and Ahmady’s notebooks in New York.

Ghani’s notebook, Afghanistan: A Lexicon, was co-authored with her father, the anthropologist and political scientist Ashraf Ghani. The notebook uses the form of a lexicon to construct a non-linear and somewhat speculative history of 20th-century Afghanistan, with an emphasis on recurrences, continuities, and spatial politics. The lexicon includes definitions for seventy-one terms, most of which are illustrated with archival or original images. The notebook’s point of departure is a detailed reflection on the reign of King Amanullah (1919–29), whose successes and failures set the pattern for the cycle of repeated reforms, collapses, and recoveries that Afghanistan would undergo throughout the 20th century.

Ahmady’s notebook focuses on Vyacheslav Akhunov, an artist who has been actively conceptualizing and producing artworks in Tashkent, Uzbekistan since the early 1970’s. Though his artistic oeuvre spans many media, Ahmady hones in on Akhunov’s vast archive of personal notebooks containing some 3,000 pages of drawings and text recorded in secret between 1974 and 2000. Often unable to realize physical art projects during the Soviet Regime, these notebooks became Akhunov’s primary mode of unrestrained expression, invention, critique, and exploration. Ahmady’s dOCUMENTA(13) contribution contextualizes and shares excerpts from this massive index of one artist’s unrelenting creative momentum for the first time in an international forum.

Mariam Ghani is a Brooklyn-based artist whose research-based practice examines places, spaces and moments where social and political structures take on visible and tangible forms. Ghani’s work in video and installation has been screened and exhibited internationally, at venues including Modern Monday’s at MoMA, NYC (2011), the Sharjah Biennials 9 and 10 (2011, 2009), the Beijing 798 Biennial (2009), the National Gallery, Washington DC (2008), the Tate Modern, London (2007), d/Art, Sydney (2006), Futura, Prague (2005), the Liverpool Biennial (2004), and transmediale, Berlin (2003).

Leeza Ahmady is an Independent Art Curator and Educator. She is Director of Asian Contemporary Art Week, a biennial of exhibitions and public programs at major museums and galleries in New York. She is an Agent for dOCUMENTA (13) exhibition (Kassel Germany 2012) and a founding board member for Center for Contemporary Arts Afghanistan, (CCAA).

This discussion is part of the Dialogues in Contemporary Art (DCA) series, hosted by AhmadyArts in collaboration with Independent Curators International (ICI) & ARTonAIR.org. The program will include select recordings of conversations, talks, & panel discussions led by Leeza Ahmady, and presented at the ICI Hub in Tribeca, New York City.

All DCA events will be recorded & made available for public access through ARTonAIR.org.

These events are open to the public, but seating is limited. Reception follows. RSVP suggested at rsvp@curatorsintl.org with event title, Take 2 in the subject field.

Important Announcement from ACAW

March 29, 2012 - filed under Announcements   

Please note that there is no Asian Contemporary Art Week program taking place in New York City in 2012. Please continue to visit our website and follow us on Facebook for news, updates on the next round of events, and to learn how to get involved.

For all collaborators and past participants, please pay attention to the change in our web address to acaw.info. If the old acaw.net address appears in any of your own web materials, we request that this be updated as soon as possible.

For all other inquiries, programming, and participation interest contact us at: acaw@asiasociety.org.

Dialogues in Contemporary Art @ ICI

March 6, 2012 - filed under Past Events   

Dialogues in Contemporary Art: Take One

Tuesday, March 13, 2012, 7:00 pm-8:30 pm @ Independent Curators International Curatorial Hub,  401 Broadway, Suite 1620, New York, NY 10013

Hitomi Iwasaki, Curator and Director of Exhibitions at Queens Museum of Art and Herb Tam, Curator and Director of Exhibitions at the Museum of Chinese in America speak with Leeza Ahmady about their research on the presence of Asia in Caribbean culture and art. Inspired by the occasion of the upcoming exhibition, Caribbean: Crossroads of the World (June 2012), Tam and Iwasaki set out to address the significant void of Asian cultural traces in the region.

The exhibition, which will span three venues in NYC, examines the visual arts and aesthetic development across the Caribbean, considering the histories of the Spanish, French, Dutch and English islands and their Diasporas.  As a highly globalized region that has been consistently shaped by multiple paths of migration since European colonization in the 15th century and the transatlantic slave trade, the Caribbean is often portrayed as the ultimate symbol of “modernity” and globalization.  However, not all of the multiple interrelations have received equal attention. What was seemingly an innocuous simple task of detecting Asian cultures in the New World turned out to be something entirely different. Too subtle is the yellow tint under the dominant shade of black…

This discussion is part of the Dialogues in Contemporary Art (DCA) series, hosted by AhmadyArts in collaboration with Independent Curators International (ICI) & ARTonAIR.org. The program will include select recordings of conversations, talks, & panel discussions led by Leeza Ahmady, and presented at the ICI Hub in Tribeca, New York City.

All DCA events will be recorded & made available for public access through ARTonAIR.org.

This event is open to the public, but seating is limited. Reception follows. RSVP suggested at rsvp@curatorsintl.org with event title, DCA Take 1, in the subject field.

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All images are © 2010 2013 AhmadyArts and the artists featured.