International curator and art advisor Leeza Ahmady shares her appreciation of global approaches to creative making and exhibiting with webinar participants. Ahmady also underscores the importance of thinking and working beyond one’s immediate locale.
“I would say that if there would be anything that could be beneficial to you, beyond just really focusing on your practice, it would be the ability to go to other places, to make work, to test out your ideas, and to interact with other kinds of communities…. There is some kind of a magic in that, and you tap into a whole community of people who might be interested in your work that you don’t find in your ordinary surroundings.”
Leeza Ahmady is a New York-based curator, consultant, and art advisor specializing in contemporary Asian art. Born in Kabul, Afghanistan, Ahmady’s family relocated to the United States when she was a teenager. From 1997-2001 she served as director of LL Gallery, a site-specific venue that exhibited international contemporary artists within a Chelsea nightclub, and from 2000-2001 she was co-director of Robert Pardo Gallery. Since 2004 she has served as director of Asian Contemporary Art Week, a New York City festival celebrating contemporary Asian art through exhibitions, lectures, performances, and other programming. In 2005 she founded AhmadyArts, a platform for her own curating, consulting, educational work, and arts advising. She has curated a large number of national and international exhibitions, including at such venues and events as The National Gallery of Art; the Whitney Museum of Art; the Queens Museum of Art; the Museo de Arte de El Salvador (MARTE); apexart; Art Asia Fair Miami; and the Second International Biennale of Arts, Kyrgyzstan. Ahmady holds a BA in International Relations with a minor in Art History from St. John’s University in New York, and an MA in Art and Cultural Management from Pratt Institute.