My wife Janet Morgan and I used to joke that the perfect way to get gallery representation was to take a Caribbean vacation and meet the dealer sunbathing on the beach next to us.  The circumstances surrounding our year 2000 exhibition of paintings and prints in the National Gallery of Art in the central Asian nation of Kyrgyzstan were every bit as far fetched.  Yet I think that the story of our adventure is a lesson in making and seizing overseas opportunities.

It all began in 1989 when the editor of a left wing newspaper approached me with a letter from a young architect in the city of Frunze, who sought to correspond with an American in a similar field.   One look at the atlas, where I located Frunze in the Soviet Union at the edge of Tien Shan Mountains, just north of China’s Taklimakan Dessert, told me that this was an opportunity not to be missed.  Altynbek Sultanalievey and I began a twelve-year correspondence that has continued to this day.  His letters would arrive “registered” at the post office, where I needed to pick them up—some sort of echo of Cold War tensions.  Our dialogue covered art, architecture, politics, cinema and especially the foibles of the English language.  As time Altynbek’s English improved, as he studied like crazy.  His letters were well and carefully written from the start, but there was a strangeness, an indirectness I could not, at the time, understand.  Later, when we talked in person, I realized he was being very careful about what he said, assuming that the authorities were reading everything.

 We discussed visiting each other, but at first the barriers were too great.  Either of us would have needed an “official invitation” and the expenses involved seemed prohibitive.  Things changed.  The Soviet Union disintegrated into constituent republics, each fully independent.  Soon I was getting letters from a new nation – Kyrgyzstan.  Now our letters dialogued about the pleasures and traumas of Capitalism.  One day in 1995 I got a static filled telephone call from Altynbek—he had managed to arrange a two-month visit to the United States.   At long last we got to show our friend around New York, where he stayed for two weeks of his time.  We toured the museums, historic and important buildings, sent him to visit the top architecture school and guided him through the bustling streets and subways.  When he left he was laden with books and good wishes.   We were, of course, invited to visit him in return.

 Janet and I knew that his invitation was a unique opportunity and we eagerly awaited the optimum circumstance.  By 1999 visa requirements had been simplified and the reliable Turkish Airlines was servicing Kyrgyzstan.  We knew it was time to visit.  With our first computer and Internet connection, email messages vastly simplified planing.  As we discussed the various places we wanted to visit, Altynbek came up with an unexpected offer.  He asked if we would like to have an art show in Kyrgyzstan.  While we were interested, we were concerned—the gallery space had requested a fee of $200, which felt a little odd to us.  A little research showed us that gallery fees were not uncommon overseas.  Relying on the integrity and judgement of our Kyrgyz friend, we decided to proceed.  Our next problem was how to safely transport art into the country.  We decided that anything we brought needed to be able to travel as ordinary luggage, preferably as carry-on luggage.   We came up with three discrete and successful solutions—I built a box to hold small Masonite panel paintings that fit under my airplane seat.  Janet and I rolled up some larger works on paper in a large diameter tube that also traveled as carry on luggage.  Lastly Janet created some large (8’ x 8’) fabric murals that were robust enough to be folded and packed in a duffel bag.

 All of our luggage and artwork survived perfectly flights from New York to Istanbul, Istanbul to Tashkent, Uzbekistan and from there on to Bishkek (Frunze’s new name), Kyrgyzstan.  We were especially careful to declare specifically what we had brought in on our customs form, as we had been warned that this was required avoid problems upon exiting the country.  Altynbek met us at the airport.  Our biggest surprise was just ahead, as we headed to deliver our art to the “gallery”.  We had not realized our friend had arranged a show for us in the National Art Gallery of Kyrgyzstan, the leading art museum of the country!  We were ushered into the modern concrete and glass two-story structure and welcomed by the director.  Imagine our pleasure and surprise.  It seems that we may have been the first Americans or at least the first New Yorkers to exhibit in this mountainous nation of four million people.  As much as anything it was likely we gained the show by having a good connection and by being at the right place at the right time.

 To say that we were made to feel welcome would be an understatement.  Our exhibition space was the front gallery of the museum, 25 feet x 80 feet, adjacent to the entrance.  Museum staff mounted, hung and lit the show beautifully.  One of Janet’s banners was proudly displayed on the exterior façade of the building.   It was her figure of the Chinese Goddess of Compassion – Kuan Yin.  This piece was greeted with wide recognition and excitement, perhaps because of our proximity to China or perhaps the powerful warmth of the image.  Opening day yielded more pleasant surprises.  We noted the podium and understood that we were to make speeches.  We received flowers and ribbons.  What floored us were camera crews from two TV stations and reporters from four newspapers.   We spent an entire afternoon being interviewed.  The Kyrgyz were earnestly curious about our work, life of an artist in New York and our impressions of their nation.  The exhibit logged over four thousand visitors in the next two weeks.  Perhaps the best part of the experience was the high level of interest among citizens.  The Kyrgyz seem highly educated and visually literate, having developed a strong art tradition during the Soviet period.  People looked carefully and discussed our work thoughtfully.  I choose to bring my scenes of Brooklyn, to share images of urban America.  An artist came up and gave me hug because he appreciated the emotions I portrayed.   Janet’s powerfully mythic god and goddess paintings struck a chord as well.  A lot of women, especially, made it a point to come up and speak with her especially.

 The opportunity to show our work at major museum came about, I think, by simply being open to possibilities.  The pleasure and learning came in direct proportion to our generous and open impulses.  In some ways we are still reverberating from these experiences nearly a year later.  Some things were only revealed with time.  It was only on our last full day in the country that I got to tour the balance of the museum.  Upstairs was an invitational show of artists from around the world about the Silk Road and adjacent to that, classic Russian paintings from the Moscow’s Tretayakov Gallery.   What amazing context to show our work in!  It was on this last day too, that we decided to donate several pieces to the museum.  We learned some more about the conditions the museum functioned under when it took twenty minutes to find a piece of paper to write us a receipt.

 Today several of our paintings and prints reside in the recesses of the National Museum of a country most Americans have never heard of.   We have added an odd line to our resumes.  But what we really returned with were experiences and knowledge we will never forget.   Janet remembers a twelve-year-old girl standing outside the museum transfixed by the Goddess Banner.  Though Janet couldn’t really communicate with her, she gifted the young women with several postcards of her work.   In addition there was the six-hour celebratory dinner party with Bishkek intellectuals the night of the opening.  Wine and cognac flowed, we talked seriously about art for hours and somewhere in there I ended up reciting the Robert Service’s Cremation of Sam McGee which poor Altynbek had to render in Russian.

Images of the exhibition can be seen on Janet’s Morgan’s website at http://imperial.palace.net/~morgan/bishkek.html