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.

In conjunction to these residencies we are creating a network of NY-based collaborating institutions (museums, university departments and other non-profit arts) to engage the artists in educational and public forums such as workshops, classes, studio visits, exhibitions, performances and panel discussions. Individually crafted itineraries will introduce the artists to mentors, curators, researchers, institutional partners, peers, and various communities. Thru their residencies artists will be given studio spaces, housing and materials to create new work, expand on existing projects, and reflect on their own artistic practice within the energy of NYC. This initiative is intended to build capacity and connections, and encourage opportunities for future collaborations.

Complementing the interactive scope of the residency program will be a series of solo and group installations, screenings, public conversations, and performances by the artists. We are approaching leading museums in NYC to host programs, provide resources, space, and other support to create a platform to contextualize Cambodia’s artistic production as part of a wider global dialogue. Artists, scholars, curators and critics will convene in public forums to explore themes such as the progression of photography, cinematic experimentation, performance art, critical and rapt examination of historical implications, cultural vitality and contemporaneity in a post-traumatic nation state.

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: 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.

2011 Asian Art Biennial: Medi(t)ation, “Asian Art and Curator’s Forum,” National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, Taipei, Taiwan, 9am – 5pm

The Forum will bring together scholars from Japan, Philippines, Korea, Afghanistan, and India to present research, exchange ideas, and investigate the impact of new cultural trends on contemporary art.   The presenters will analyze how current trends affect countries across Asia with specific respect to their regional history, traditions, aesthetics, cultural backgrounds, and relationship with regional counterparts in the 21st century. The forum aims to foster a mutual exchange of views and to deepen reciprocal understanding as the basis for further interaction and connection.

Leeza Ahmady’s presentation within the framework of the “Asian Art and Curator’s Forum” aims to engage professionals and encourage artistic exchange between Central Asia and the larger Asian contemporary art world.  Ahmady will offer a broad-spectrum analysis of the arts and culture in Central Asia as related to recent developments in contemporary art.  The presentation will showcase locally active artists and organizations, as well as those who are visible in the international arena, while addressing the lack of artistic dialogue between Central Asia and the surrounding Asian continent, the United States and Europe, thus making a case for the importance of further global artistic engagement in this region.

National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts

Auditorium Gallery

Taipei, Taiwan

For more information please visit:

http://www.ntmofa.gov.tw/english/projectlecture_1.aspx?SN=3321

Thursday, October 20, 2011

Roundtable discussion “Contemporary Art: World Currents,” with Terry Smith, Independent Curators International, New York, 2pm – 5pm

This roundtable will bring together a number of emerging and mid-career curators who are actively engaged in the global art community for a collaborative discussion based on each curator’s theoretical and practical approach to navigating contemporary art.  The conversation will center on the idea of testing definitions of contemporaneity, re-modernism and global.  Participants will exchange ideas and opinions that explore the applications and implications of these terms.

Participants include:  Leeza Ahmady, Kalia Brooks, Doryun Chong, Sofia Olascoaga, Terry Smith, and others.

Independent Curators International (ICI)
401 Broadway, Suite 1620
New York, NY 10013

Thursday, November 3, 2011

“The Taste of Others: Art in Central Asia,” as part of the CU Art Museum and Art History Program fall Lecture Series “CRITICAL POSITIONS: Perspectives on Art History, Curatorial Practice, and Art Criticism,” University of Colorado at Boulder

Leeza Ahmady’s project “The Taste of Others” was first launched in 2005 as an ongoing curatorial, educational, and archival initiative to connect the artists and art practitioners of Central Asia (Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan) to artists and art professionals in other parts of the world. The project has been presented in a variety of formats (exhibitions, lectures, panels, screenings, interviews, articles, essays) at numerous venues in the US and abroad.

318 UCB, Visual Arts Complex (VAC)
University of Colorado at Boulder
Boulder, CO 80309

dOCUMENTA (13) is a series of artistic acts and gestures that are already taking place as well as an exhibition that will open on June 9, 2012, and that will run for 100 days. dOCUMENTA (13) does not follow a single, overall concept but engages in conducting, and choreographing manifold materials, methods, and knowledges.

Curatorial Team and Process

dOCUMENTA (13) is being planned by artistic director Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev with a number of agents, advisors, and artists. Throughout 2009 and 2010, Christov-Bakargiev traveled and lectured widely, building up a group of people with whom the process is shared. More than half of the participating artists have already been invited and are preparing projects for dOCUMENTA (13).

The dOCUMENTA (13) Agents contribute in various ways, and have different degrees of engagement. Some work more closely and consistently, others more loosely and occasionally, so as to create a generative process that is organic and affective, open to change. The Agents may increase during the upcoming years, and constitute an unstable curatorial entity. “In small systems,” states Christov-Bakargiev, “an agent acts by proxy, and chooses among a number of alternatives, so that agency is delegated, thus implying an element of uncertainty through which the system works. An agent, in biology, precipitates a reaction, and in fiction, an agent suggests someone who is hidden or undercover, never fully revealing identity. Agere, in Latin, is to act.” Currently, the Agents are Leeza Ahmady, Ayreen Anastas & Rene Gabri, Sofía Hernández Chong Cuy, Sunjung Kim, Koyo Kouoh, Joasia Krysa, Marta Kuzma, Raimundas Malašauskas, Chus Martínez, Lívia Páldi, Hetti Perkins, Eva Scharrer, Kitty Scott, and Andrea Viliani.

What is dOCUMENTA (13) about?

Questions of personal and collective emancipation through art emerge in the process of making dOCUMENTA (13) by thinking through a number of composite ontologies that generate paradoxical conditions of contemporary life and artistic production. These include:

• participation and withdrawal as simultaneous modes of existence today;
• embodiment and disembodiment, and their mutual dependency;
• rootedness and homelessness, as a dual condition of subjecthood;
• proximity and distance, and their relativity;
• collapse and recovery, occurring simultaneously as well as in succession;
• the flood of uncontrolled information and the contemporaneous obsession with control and organization;
• translation and untranslatability, and their negotiation;
• inclusion and exclusion, and their connectedness;
• access and inaccessibility, and their co-existence;
• the obsolescence of a Eurocentric notion of art and the paradoxical emergence of practices related to that same notion in the world at large today;
• human life and other forms of life facing multi-species entangled  histories;
• advanced science/technology and its alliance with ancient traditions;
• tangible and intangible heritage and their interconnectedness with contemporary culture;
• the specificity of being an artist and the non-specificity of artistic practice.

Exploring this set of composite ontologies and considerations, the exhibition will be held in various locations and places, and will include new works by more than 100 artists from around the world. In some cases, these will be presented as parts of projects with other artists, agents, or persons active in cultural fields including science and literature. Furthermore, a number of historical artworks will be exhibited in these interrelated ideas, conversations, and parallel stories.

Dialogues in Asian Contemporary Art (DACA) is an ongoing series hosted by ACAW Director, Leeza Ahmady.  With the idea that no artist or community’s art can be summed up all at once, DACA presents select recordings of interviews, conversations, talks, and panel discussions happening year-round at venues across New York City.  The recordings from ACAW 2011 joins an archive of past interviews featuring foremost artists such as Ai Weiwei, Yeondoo Jung, Lee Mingwei, Alexander Ugay, Almagul Menlibayeva, Guy Ben-ner and more.

Listen to ACAW Artists & Curators in Dialogue!
The complete DACA series is available here.

An evening with Mariam Ghani
Ghani discusses her work and ongoing examinations of the public and private narratives that construct and contest histories, places and communities. During the conversation the artist screened five video works, including her most recent commissioned work for the Sharjah Biennial 2011. Recorded on March 21, 2011 at the Museum of Modern Art.
Listen to dialogue with Mariam Ghani

Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian
The legendary, charming, and enduringly vital artist Monir Farmanfarmaian talks about her life and work with Melissa Chiu, Director of Asia Society Museum.  With a career spanning over fifty years Farmanfarmaian is not short on achievements, notably receiving a Venice Biennale Gold Medal in 1958.  Recorded on March 23, 2011 at Asia Society.
Listen to dialogue with Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian

International Biennials: Suzanne Cotter, David Elliott, Massimiliano Gioni
In a presentation moderated by IFA Scholar Joe Martin Hill, three renowned curators discuss their curatorial processes for the recent biennials in Sharjah, Sydney and Gwangju.  The dialogue presented three rather unique perspectives on what it means to curate a successful biennial, why perennial exhibitions have flourished in Asia and what the future holds.  Recorded on March 25, 2011 at Guggenheim Museum.
Listen to dialogue with Suzanne Cotter, David Elliott, Massimiliano Gioni

Wind: Jungjin Lee
Jungjin Lee discusses her latest work with acclaimed photography critic and historian, Vicki Goldberg. Wind centers on the artist’s response to the American desert as depicted through her unconventional prints on Korean paper, resulting in work with a subjective and cultural perspective. Recorded on March 26, 2011 at Aperture in association with sepiaEYE.
Listen to dialogue with Jungjin Lee

Neo-Dada Mix/Remix: Ushio Shinohara and Tomokazu Matsuyama
New York-based Japanese artists Ushio Shinohara (b. 1932) and Tomokazu Matsuyama (b. 1976) talk about their work and respective, often unconventional approaches to the exploration of Japanese culture and history in this conversation with Asia Society Associate Curator, Miwako Tezuka. Recorded on March 28, 2011 at Asia Society.
Listen to dialogue with Ushio Shinohara and Tomokazu Matsuyama

Women, Arts, and Activism: Karin Chien, Amita Swadhin, Chang-Jin Lee
A film producer, an educator, and a conceptual artist join together to discuss how their work carefully balances art and activism in this conversation with noted historian Joan Lebold Cohen.  Recorded on March 30, 2011 at China Institute in collaboration with Asian Women Giving Circle and Ethan Cohen Fine Arts.
Listen to dialogue with Karin Chien, Amita Swadhin, Chang-Jin Lee

Fong Wah Phoebe Hui, Chaw Ei Thein, Firoz Mahmud: Role of Artists in Local Spaces and Global Society
Artists from Hong Kong, Burma and Bangladesh explore the challenges and opportunities encountered in maneuvering local art scenes while becoming increasingly engaged in global art forums, in this discussion moderated by ACAW Director, Leeza Ahmady. Recorded on March 30, 2011 at Location One in association with the Asian Cultural Council.
Listen to dialogue with Fong Wah Phoebe Hui, Chaw Ei Thein, Firoz Mahmud

Yang Jiechang and Zheng Shengtian
Historian Jane DeBevoise engages the artists in a spirited Q&A following a screening of Asia Art Archive’s feature documentary From Jean-Paul Sartre to Teresa Teng: Contemporary Cantonese Art in the 1980s.  Recorded on March 31, 2011 at Museum of Chinese in America (MOCA) in association with Asia Art Archive.
Listen to dialogue with Yang Jiechang and Zheng Shengtian

Mariam Ghani, A Brief History of Collapses. Video, Commissioned by the Sharjah Biennial X, 2011.

Asian Contemporary Art Week, (ACAW) celebrates over 90 artists’ works at 35 New York City museums and galleries thru select exhibitions, conversations, screenings, book launches, receptions, and curator tours from March 21-31, 2011. Now in its seventh year, ACAW 2011 launches Dialogues in Asian Contemporary Art, a series of talks with more than 25 leading artists and professionals in the field.  Over the course of the ten days, ACAW Dialogues will strive to disseminate broader, more thorough knowledge of art communities and artists’ activities within and outside of Asia.

Highlights of the ACAW Dialogues include:

A discussion with Mariam Ghani and Barbara London at the Museum of Modern Art (March 21)
Rashid Rana and Pooja Sood at Sotheby’s (March 22)
M.F. Husain and Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian with Melissa Chiu at Asia Society Museum (March 23)
David Elliott, Massimiliano Gioni, and Suzanne Cotter with Joe Martin Hill at the Guggenheim Museum (March 25)
Ushio Shinohara and Tomokazu Matsuyama with Miwako Tezuka at Asia Society Museum (March 28)
Liu Xiaodong with Alexandra Munroe at the Guggenheim Museum (March 29)
Xiaoze Xie interviewed by Robert Hobbs at China Institute (March 29)
A discussion with Asian Cultural Council 2011 grantees/contemporary artists Firoz Mahmud, Chaw Ei Thein, and Fong Wah Phoebe Hui led by Leeza Ahmady at Location One (March 30)
Yang Jiechang and Zheng Shengtian in conversation with Jane DeBevoise at Museum of Chinese in the Americas (March 31)

Most programs are free to the public and some require advance booking. For more information and a complete schedule of events, visit http://www.acaw.net

Participating Venues:

Monday, March 21
The Museum of Modern Art*

Tuesday, March 22
Sotheby’s

Wednesday, March 23
Asia Society and Museum*

Thursday, March 24
Chambers Fine Art
Jack Shainman Gallery*
Meulensteen
Priska C. Juschka Fine Art
sepia EYE at Aperture Gallery*
Sundaram Tagore Gallery
Thomas Erben Gallery*
Tyler Rollins Fine Art*

Friday, March 25
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum*
Rubin Museum of Art

Saturday, March 26
Bose Pacia*
Ethan Cohen Fine Art*
Rubin Museum of Art
sepia EYE at Aperture Gallery*
Tally Beck Contemporary
Zürcher Studio

Sunday, March 27
Indo-American Arts Council at Queens Museum of Art

Monday, March 28
Asia Society and Museum*

Tuesday, March 29
China Institute*
Gallery Korea / Korean Cultural Service
Japan Society Gallery*
Leila Taghinia-Milani Heller Gallery*
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum*
Taipei Cultural Center

Wednesday, March 30
Asian Cultural Council at Location One
China Institute*

Thursday, March 31
Asia Art Archive at Museum of Chinese in America (MOCA)
Priska C. Juschka Fine Art

Sponsors: Asian Cultural Council and Sotheby’s
Media Sponsors: ArtAsiaPacific, artnet, and Art on Air

Contact us for more details!

Sharif Waked. Get Out of Here, 2009, Stencil on wall, 148 x 252 in. Courtesy of the artist

OPENING AT:

Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art

Cornell University

August 14 thru October 3, 2010

This groundbreaking exhibition, co-curated by Leeza Ahmady and Iftikhar Dadi, and assistant curated with Reem Fadda, was commissioned and organized by the New York non-profit art organization ArteEast, and initially exhibited at the Queens Museum of Art in Spring 2009.

Tarjama/Translation features the works of 28 Middle Eastern artists who explore processes of cultural and artistic translation from different angles.  Included in the theme is how multiple identities and affiliations are created and challenged, how people and places are connected through economics or politics, how different histories and traditions (including artistic) are interpreted, and the relationship between languages, images, and texts from different sources.

Artists:

Ayad Alkadhi, Nazgol Ansarinia, Hamdi Attia, Lara Baladi, Yto Barrada, Esra Ersen, Khaled Hafez, Emily Jacir, Pouran Jinchi, John Jurayj, Gülsün Karamustafa, Bouchra Khalili, Almagul Menlibayeva, Farhad Moshiri, Rabih Mroue, Rahraw Omarzad, Michael Rakowitz, Khalil Rabah, Khaled Ramadan, Solmaz Shahbazi, Wael Shawky, Mitra Tabrizian, Alexander Ugay, Sharif Waked, Dilek Winchester, Yelena Vorobyeva & Viktor Vorobyev, Akram Zaatari

For full information and images, click here.

Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art
Cornell University
Central & University Aves.
Ithaca, NY 14853