TIRANA, March 14- During March 8 and 9 of 2019, 13 Albanian video-artists presented their works to the Austrian public at the Belvedere 21 museum in Vienna a multimedia art festival titled “Dà©jeuner avec Marubi,” to introduce themselves to the public, and also provide a deeper understanding of Albania. Some images display people crying over the death of the dictator, others the colorful cubist shapes over wrecked facades, and another image showed a girl adding colors to a black-and-white picture of her mother.
Some artists like Anri Sala and Adrian Paci have long emigrated from the Albanian art scene and are contributing to the contemporary European art scene. Other artists have studied abroad and worked in western art scenes collecting experiencing so they can experiment with the Albanian heritage. Such artists are Silva Agostini who lives in Berlin, Elsa Martini in Vienna, Violana Muranaj in New York and Tirana, Ermela Teli in Switzerland, Adrian Paci in Milano and Shkoder.
It’s been a while since the Albanian art has gotten out from the provincial artistic channel, however artist Adrian Paci said that we are still a small country averted a bit from the main cultural and artistic discussion channels. Yet, we are not expelled from it.
“This festival is part of those grand attempts to create a dialogue between the Albanian and the international art scene, but these are processes which should be kept constantly alert,” said Paci.
Some material for the Albanian artist comes from Enver Hoxha’s regime, who censored the largest income of artistic composition. The dictatorship heritage is no part of the artistic imagination. A sour past transformed into art can always remain actual, as it happens with Paci’s video “Interregnum” that discusses the individual’s deforming during communism. It is also depicted in the monologue of artist Driant Zeneli who recalls his childhood during the regime while painting an autobiography through his photographs, and in the visual display of the regime victims’ stories prepared by artistic group “Memo” with written texts of writer Agron Tufa.
In the project MEMO the previously inaudible victims finally have the chance to confess their stories. Their voices of pain are the voices of the artists that are living freedom today. A memorial over the regime that only art can elevate. According to artist Leonard Qylafi the multimedia instruments are a proper tool to face this trauma.
“Entrance to the collective memory through a personal perspective.”
Words and visuals aren’t enough that is why absorbing the surrounding environment through, together with documentation are necessary. “Nailsong” is a powerful video which unites the power of sound with visuals, where a stirring hand draws unclear concentric circles in the presence of a warning voice.
The artistic video is a genre embraced by Albanian artists. This terrain isn’t dominated by male artists, as female artists have been experimenting with images and their reflexions for a while now. A special focus on this festival were actually works of Albanian female artists.
“Female artists aren’t introduced yet as they deserve it, a phenomenon present worldwide. Since the first day of this festival was also March 8, the International Women’s Day, it was an almost obligation to put a gravity point to the art scene created by women,’’ explained Annemarie Tà¼rk on the choice.
The majority of the female video artists come from the painting world. Violana Murataj discovered artistic videos after a camera came into her household for the first time. She said that everyday she would discover something new and feel closer to the medium. After she studied in New York she returned in Tirana because of the Albanian climate.
“Even more that Albania offer you the opportunity to touch artistic themes in the social or family spectrum, there are many tangible themes for us artists and they create space for composition for each artist,” said Murataj.
Elsa Martini is another Albanian artist but who has been living in Vienna for 10 years now. She turns into art not only her homeland remembrance but also her experience from the foreign country. Albania and Vienna for her are “interference” that enrich one another. She said that she had to be assimilated with the culture in Vienna but also with rewatching her history through another perspective. She had to restructure her thoughts, emotions, and her whole life. In her work “Executing love” she elaborates on her emigration experience. A kiss between two people that seems to be never finalized, a man and woman in security uniforms, and an interrupted kiss by a glass.
Another female artist Ermela Teli was introduced by her work “A political care,” an artistic video on the Roma families living on the suburbs of Albania’s society. Teli has been living in Switzerland for three years now. She understands art as “inner need to communicate, even outside the walls of Albania and the economic problems, I speak, feel, and live in my creative manner.” She said that her artistic mentor is life itself and what she discovers through challenges, circumstances and events. Other female video artists like Donika Cina, Alketa Ramaj, and Silva Agostini, brought brief moments that oftentimes were private reflections which through art they were approached in a different dimension, that of human connection.
The colors are used to avoid the sadness of a “dead city” , shouted by the background voice of current Albanian prime minister Edi Rama when Mayor of Tirana, who was the first to undertake the project of painting the facades on the capital’s buildings. As the camera documents the changes in Tirana, the typical background noises of the city are heard. These scenes are seen in the introductive works of renowned artist Anri Sala, “Dà©jeuner avec Marubi” and “Dammi i colori.” Sala himself however, missed the festival and was only represented by his internationally acclaimed works.
Video artist Leonard Qyfali brought another perspective to this view of changes experienced by Tirana by considering the chaotic changes. In a photo montage it is documented the scenery transformation step by step in front of the artist’s window. Images that make one also understand the urbanistic anarchy that associated Tirana. For politically involved artist Ergin Zaloshnja art is a tool to criticize the structures of power. His work “The last hope” documents a project close to Tirana’s artificial lake.
“Dà©jeuner avec Marubi” was a festival full with intensive images, yet limited to only two nights. During the intervals of the video introductions the Austrian public had the chance to connoisseur the artists through discussions. When one hears the Albanian artists speak on their perseverance to continue their hard path as artists, one can also understand that this path holds strong motifs ready to be transferred into art.
“Precisely in the far-from centers suburbs you can find projects and other interesting things happening, especially in the space of arts and culture, and the Albanian art scene has been an important part of the European art for a while,” concluded Annemarie Turk.
