Old Persian Calligraphy Survives

Sometimes opportunity knocks in booms and bangs. I told a good friend a week ago that I was heading to North Adams, Mass., a short drive from my home, to see the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, or MASS MoCA, the biggest contemporary art museum in the world. “You ought to try to meet Alibaba Awrang,” my friend said. “He’s there as an artist in residence, and he’s a fantastic painter . . . calligraphy, Persian-style . . . and he’s an Afghan.” I’d been thinking about an artist profile, which I haven’t done in a few months, and I’d profiled neither an artist inspired by calligraphy nor an artist from Afghanistan.