Albanian-born artist Anri Sala opened his exhibition titled ‘Answer Me’ at the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York City, on February 3, 2016. One of the most successful artists over the last decades, Sala’s three-floor retrospective, features audio and video installations.
His late 1990s videos depict and examine the life of Albanians after communism, while his early 2000s video combine the profound language of music and sound in order to transmit different emotions. During and after the mid-2000s, Sala has featured in his works various musicians during their performances in films as well as in live concerts. His most recent works feature theatrical installations mainly focused on the classical music theme.
“I did not want to fall back into a type of work focused only on my identity and biography: I was afraid that it could become a prison. So I made a conscious choice not to work in that direction,” Sala said. Sponsored by Lonti Ebers, Bruce Flatt and Maja Hoffmann / LUMA Foundation, Maria de Jesus Rendeiro, Joà£o Oliveira Rendeiro, and V-A-C Foundation, Sala’s exhibition also includes his US premiere installation Ravel Ravel Unravel (2013), which was first exhibited at the 55th Venice Biennale.
“There is not only a preoccupation with truth, but also a devotion to sincerity which runs through many of your early works and which represented a dramatic contrast to the more medium-specific, decontructivist work of other artists at the time,” said the curator of the exhibition Massimiliano Gioni.
Among the venues where the Albanian contemporary artist has presented his solo exhibitions are the Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati, the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, the Haus der Kunst, Munich, the 55th Venice Biennale, the Serpentine Gallery, London, the Fondazione Nicola Trussardi, Milan, the Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami, and many others.
Born in 1974 in Tirana, Albania, Anri Sala studied art at the Albanian Academy of Arts from 1992 to 1996. In 1996 he went to study video at the Ecole Nationale des Arts Dà©coratifs, Paris and film direction in Le Fresnoy-Studio National des Arts Contemporains, Tourcoing. Among the awards he has received are the Vincent Award in 2014, the 10th Benesse Prize in 2013, the Absolut Art Award in 2011, and the Young Artist Prize at the Venice Biennale back in 2001. Currently Sala lives and works in Paris.
Answer Me exhibition will stay open until April 10, 2016.
