Ledia Kostandini in “Aesthetic Doily”

TIRANA, Dec. 25 – “Aesthetic doily.” This is how Tirana-based artist Ledia Kostandini has named her solo exhibition treating aesthetic centres which are turning into an obsession for women.
“Ledia treats things full of energy and intensity, sometimes with sincere and sometimes with grotesque humor, by changing their function, meaning, and value, by adding elements and other object-parts, not very differently to what happens in beauty salons, gyms, and under the plastic surgeons’ knife. The objects and installations at Miza follow in the trail of the Surrealists of the early 20th Century and the legacy of Duchamp in the 21st, in a post-industrial context of global production and consumption, where criticism and the celebration of this political, economic and cultural order don’t much differ from one another, if they aren’t the same altogether,” says Eriola Pira, the curator of the exhibition.
The exhibition at the Miza gallery close to the Faculty of Law will remain open until January 23, 2014.
A contemporary artist, Kostandini is mainly focused on mixed media art, and has produced numerous pieces, often combining several techniques or materials. Her works provoke ambiguous emotional reactions in visitors, like nostalgia and imagination which mingle curiosityƯr surprise and humor.
Concerned with transition and social transformations, the artist utilizes her life experience in reaching conclusions. Often, she uses her artwork as an instrument to go back and forward in time. Contacting her childhood, she reconsiders past and present national issues. Her interest in site specific installations subsequently led to a further development of her skills, producing numerous pieces across Albania. They dominate and transform the spaces, making people engage with them in new ways. Ledia plays with what the reality provides turning space and public into essential features of these interactive artworks. During these journeys, underneath ironic approaches, she discovers the modern system, say curators of her exhibitions.