TIRANA, Sept. 16 – A plaster mask dedicated to late Albanian dictator Enver Hoxha is the focus of an installation created by Albanian contemporary artist Ardian Isufi in a special exhibition called Anti-homage.
“The installation is a synthesis of historical and visual art elements and brings for the first time the display of a very interesting artifact for the public, the death mask of dictator Enver Hoxha,” says Ardian Isufi, a 42-year old Albanian contemporary artist and professor who lives and works in Tirana.
“My creativity in recent years and my artistic examinations, through visual art in the social context, have urged me to create this exhibition as artistic intervention well-studied in the historical but also anthropological context. The archive of the National History museum also has in its collection Enver Hoxha’s death mask which is a very important artifact to be displayed for the first time in the form of an artistic installation,” says Isufi.
In this exhibition, the public is provided with a new conceptual approach of the relationship each individual can have by confronting with the dictator (its mask) and the history of dictatorship. The installation traces through an isolation tunnel and stands for a few moments in front of Enver Hoxha creating an imaginary contact with time. This contact along with the portrait mask pushes into a psychological contact where the portrait’s emotional expression and gesticulation will be documented as anti-homage to Albania’s history of dictatorship and for this reason the contact in front of this death mask is carried out through a mental tunnel which has been installed as a labyrinth of the psychological stream in the central hall of the national history museum.
Late dictator Enver Hoxha ruled Albania with an iron fist from 1945 until his death in 1985 isolating Albania from the rest of the world and banning religion.
The exhibition will remain open September 22.
