دیدار Didar, meaning visit, encounter, meeting, or sight, is one of the most often used and meaningful words in the Persian language. Human beings thrive on making new acquaintances and discovering new places. Meetings often lead to new adventures and create memories, nostalgia, and a desire to meet again. دیدار Didar can describe friendly, romantic, first and last meetings, and the anticipation and hope to meet again. Meetings provide the opportunity to experience others firsthand and objectively, not weighed down by what one might have heard about a person or a place. The five Persian letters in the word دیدار Didar are rich with emotion.
دیدار Didar is the title of internationally recognized contemporary calligrapher and master painter Alibaba Awrang’s (b. 1972 in Ghazni Province, Afghanistan) first West Coast exhibition and residency. دیدار Didar expresses his deep appreciation for the opportunities he has enjoyed since his resettlement in the United States after his displacement in 2021 due to the Taliban’s rise to power.
This exhibition aligns with 836 M’s 2025 programmatic theme, “Dialogue,” which centers around multidisciplinary programming rooted in the dialogue of two or more mediums, artistic disciplines, practices, themes, subjects, or experiences. Awrang’s works highlight the conversation between a traditional art form and contemporary context, between different geographic areas and cultures, and the artist’s inner dialogue translated into outward expression.
This exhibition displays the transformation of Awrang’sart since his arrival two years ago. Awrang exemplifies in these carefully selected works the development of his inner and outer worlds, which he describes as more open, with an expanded imagination and greater hope for his and his family’s future. The ten pieces displayed as part of دیدار Didar are inspired by great Persian poetry exploring themes related to the deepest of human emotions and experiences, such as love, loyalty, friendship, intimacy, memories, adversity, and themes of nature, including flowers, the sun, moon, and changing seasons.
During Alibaba Awrang’s month-long residency at 836M, he will create a new piece, imparting his expert technique and style onto raw canvas. Programming will include opportunities to witness his process, starting from an organic and improvised inspiration. He often begins a work with a letter, a word, or a poem. The public is invited to watch his process outside the gallery windows as he creates and participate in his process through workshops and events.
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Alibaba Awrang is a leading contemporary calligrapher. Trained in Tehran, Iran as a traditional Persian calligrapher, Awrang’s work has evolved to a new artistic form of calligraphy that blurs the lines between textual and visual expression.
In his own words, “In my painting, I present a new abstract contemporary artistic reality of a traditional art form. Most importantly, my work expresses my life experiences, struggles and suffering, joy and sadness, love and anger.” Awrang’s work is well known in the Eastern world, with exhibitions in Kabul, Tehran, Bahrain, Dubai, Istanbul, Islam Adad, Tajikistan and Melbourne, among others. At the pinnacle of his artistic career, Awrang and his family were evacuated from Afghanistan by the U.S. Department of State in 2021 when the Taliban took control of the country. In 2022, Awrang relaunched his career as a painter from his new home in Connecticut. His first commission, painted on the floor of his bedroom, was a large triptych now installed permanently in the entry gallery of the I.M. Pei-designed Museum of Islamic Art in Doha, Qatar, one of the world’s premier museums of Islamic art.
Since his arrival in the U.S., his work has also been acquired by the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum in Hartford, CT, the World Bank, and private collectors. His work has been featured in the 2024 Sydney Biennale and two prominent exhibitions in Connecticut: in a 2023 show at the Mattatuck Museum in Waterbury, entitled Uprooted: From Afghanistan to Connecticut, and in a sold-out exhibition at the Judy Black Memorial Park and Gardens in Litchfield County, entitled From Kabul to Connecticut. His work is also in the collection of the RMIT Museum and Gallery, Melbourne, Australia. In 2024, he was awarded an Assets for Artists grant by MASS Moca Museum in North Adams, MA.
Awrang was born in Ghazni Province, Afghanistan, in 1972. He received his Bachelor and Master of Calligraphy degrees at the Iranian Calligraphy Association in Shiraz and Tehran, respectively. He taught painting and chaired the Calligraphy and Miniature Painting Department at the Turquoise Mountain Institute in Kabul, Afghanistan. His work has been published in several books, including Kelke Khyal (Calligraphy of Alibaba Awrang) (2015).