Albanian art on display at Venice Biennale

TIRANA, June 8 – Five Albanian artists are displaying their works at the 54th International Art Exhibition which is taking place in Venice from June 4th to November 27th 2011. The young artists Anila Rubiku, Orion Shima, Gentian Shkurti, Eltjon Valle and Driant Zeneli live both in Albania and abroad (especially in Italy). The title of the show is Geopathies, the compound of two Greek words: Ge (Or Gea), the earth; and Pathos (passion, affection). The five artists were selected by Italy’s Riccardo Caldura, who is the curator of the Albanian pavilion. “It is therefore an investigation on the relationship between work, feeling and context, the latter understood as the set of historical, social, cultural and geographic components that make up the complex chessboard of what we understand today as the ground, the homeland, the place of origin and of eventual return,” writes Braverman Gallery. It may seem paradoxical to speak of the place of origin in a dimension that, especially for what concerns the contemporary arts, is proving to be increasingly international and therefore global. But within this global horizon the deep connections between work and the complex chessboard mentioned above do not weaken or lessen. Indeed, the artworks seem to be particularly sensitive mechanisms for recording the differences and affections of these places, i.e. the complex dynamics that exist between the human dimension and the surrounding context. In their complete autonomy of languages, formal solutions and poetical options, the five invited artists bring to light, very intensely, their relationship with their country of origin, a country in profound transformation as Albania currently is. Anila Rubiku proposes a new, complex installation “Other countries. Other citizenships” composed of a number of men’s hats carefully embroidered by hand by many people involved in the production of the work. The artist, who lives between Italy, France and Albania, wonders what remains of the starting place, in the dimension of exile and encounter with other cultures and other people. Albania’s Geopathies exhibition condenses the curatorial idea of identifying a close relationship between the work of art and the geographical, historical and social context. “The works have been conceived as privileged dots of relief to catch aspects from another reality other than the every-day one,” organizers say in a statement.
Albania’s pavilion will be displayed in Giudecca, one of the most beautiful venues in Venice, in front of the Academy of Fine Arts in a 160 m2 area. Other artists representing Albania include Gentian Shkurti, who is participating in the exhibition with a painting and a video called “Democratic Painting.” Orion Shima, another Albanian artist selected for the Venice Biennale is represented with three paintings. Eltjon Valle is participating with a project on Marinz, one of the most polluted oil-bearing fields in Albania.