Galleria Kabul: Making Art Part of Life

Making Art Part Of Life

Working for 7 years with over 100 mostly master artists and 10 women art and crafts organizations, The Galleria has a deep understanding of art, artists and the market trends. Our aim is not just to support artists and sell art, but to make art part of life.

The three decades of war has devastated the art scene, however over a decade of reconstruction has officially done very little to reinvigorate art. Any significant achievement in the field of arts has mostly been private effort. There is a great disconnect between Afghan people and art, as very few homes have an art piece. For the most part, people have forgotten how to use art in their daily lives.

From a cultural perspective, art is the mirror of the culture and in the centuries to come, people would know this culture from its art. Economically speaking, the art market is currently an annual half-million dollar industry in Afghanistan. It employs approximately one thousand people; out of which only a handful live entirely on their craft. Everyone else has a daily job to supplement their income from art.

Creating opportunities that generate revenue for the artist while stimulating public interest in the arts has been the focus of The Galleria. For example, taking white marble from Herat and working with sculptors to make Afghan figurines such as burqa women and monuments of Afghanistan has not only generated revenue down the chain, but it has also created a new market which did not exist before. Furthermore, by paying royalty to artists to lend their art for book covers, post cards, and playing cards, we hope that art finds its way in the homes of Afghan people. While most target the 100,000+ expat community, The Galleria also caters to the 30 million Afghans for the continuity and sustainability of art in Afghanistan.

Past Activities

Seven City Tour of Afghan Arts in Films, 2005, USA [New York, Virginia, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles and San Francisco] & Canada [Toronto]
Istanbul Bi-Annual sponsoring 4 artists [Tawfiq Rahmani, President of Faculty of Fine Arts at Herat University, Ghafaar Ghafoori, Co-Founder of Center for Visual Arts Herat, Rahraw Omarzad, President of Center for Contemporary Art Afghanistan (CCAA), Leeza Ahmady, Curator at Asia Foundation, New York City] 2005
Building Cultural Bridges, sponsoring two artists [Yar Mohammad Taraki, Afghan-Canadian Master Artist & Samizai, independent Afghan-American Artist] to lecture and hold workshops at Kabul University, Herat University, Behzad High School of Herat, Center For Visual Arts in Herat and Turquoise Mountain in Kabul, 2007
Establishing The Galleria and the largest private fine arts gallery in Afghanistan
Afghanistan Art Exhibition, Agha Khan Foundation, Ottawa, Canada, 2011
Art Santa Fe, Exhibition of World Art, July 2012
Rock Festival, Co-sponsor, French Cultural Institute, September 2012