”A history out of context” at Promenade Gallery

TIRANA, Aug 31 – The Promenade Gallery in the southern coastal city of Vlora is hosting a group exhibition of seven contemporary international artists. The exhibition is named “A history out of context” after an installation by Albanian artist Artan Shabani who presents a few piles of the old castle of Vlora, remains of an “ancient memory” that has been lost over the past twenty years, during the destruction and reconstruction of the city. Reviving the pilings out of the water, that is, outside of their original context (now deceased) but preserving the memory of a culture drowned by the events. Placing itself beyond the headlines and history, these works propose a different story than the reality we know, because out of context and patterns.
Other artists participating in the exhibition include Cristian Chironi, Igor Eskinja, Dacia Manto, Anahita Razmi,and Albania’s Enkelejd Zonja and Ardian Isufi.
German artist Anahita Razmi’s video work, ”How your veil can help you in the case of an earthquake (lesson 1-8)” is linked to an event that took place just before the date of origin of the video: the big earthquake in the region of Bam, Iran in December 2003. In the video the chador, the veil, symbol of muslim women, is used as a mere functional object. Shot in clearly contrasting black and white, the video is showing a rigorous direction in eight steps on how to use your veil as a lifesaver in the case of an earthquake, a dry run, that is reminding of stewardess instructions.
In the series entitled Gap, Cristian Chironi, is inspired for his research from the photo archive of the Institute Parri Emilia-Romagna (Italy), using some pictures taken by Vittorio Vialli, the military captured and imprisoned in 1943 in a concentration camp in Germany . Vialli succeeded in hiding during his imprisonment, his camera and some film, documenting the few moments of “escape” in the camp.
In the work of Ardian Isufi, “Pa titull ne kohe (Untitled in time) dating to the eighties, there is an irony subtle brain, which reduces the order of time to return to the tradition of painting a subversive attitude.
In Dacia Manto’s Asterina videos, drawings of Dacia are interwoven with natural elements, fading into the landscape, “French place” with relationships between what is natural and what is artificial. The artist then creates an area that is outside the control of man and Mother Nature.
Igor Eskinja Panel Discussion is a photographic work that is a part of space constructions which form “impossible picture.” Work is located in a non-context environment typical for the gallery and museum spaces. It represents a group of fictitious chairs reminding us to possible gathering both in past as in future. In reality chairs are cut out from the carpet which have a temporary, precarious and fremovable character.
Enkelejd Zonja ”Miss Patty” painting is part of a series where the focus is set on the woman figure and her position in society. “My attempt has been capturing an intimate moment of the character’s everyday life. Solitude, sadness, insecurity lay in the underground of a melancholic atmosphere. The challenging look of a woman hides the enigma of her personal life history.”
The exhibition ”A history out of context” will be open to the public until September 19, 2011 at the Promenade Gallery, Skele-Uji i Ftohte, boulevard, Vlora.
The exhibition’s curator Alberto Zanchetta says the artists of the exhibition circumvent the context to create a space and a completely different story. Every situation (extracted, fragmented and proposed elsewhere) acquires a different meaning, and this is especially true in art galleries and museums, where the clean room leads to a decontextualization, and also forces a re-interpretation of the facts.
With this mechanism of diversification and alteration of reality, the artists come out of the context – meaning out of the original speech – to “unravel the world”and mallow us to see things with a very unusual look.