The National Gallery of Arts opened its new artistic season on January 21 with a solo exhibition by artist Lumturi Blloshmi that will stay open until February 10. The exhibition features installations, paintings, and photographs made after the 90s, which like an open diary, recall the powerful social and artistic messages Blloshmi has broadcast to the public through her personal and collective exhibitions.
Featuring installations like Obsession – The Pyramid, The Utopian Road, Ambiguity, The invasion of the space, Paradox, Duality, It’s a Wonderful Life, Is’t a men’s world, etc., the exhibition brings into focus an important stage of Blloshmi’s creativity,
Choosing the chair as the main symbol, the well known painter, besides disclosing certain links of public figures, creates traps, and exposes to the public attitudes and actions that have shaken Albania through the years.
“She has used the miniature to give the series a sense of intimacy, full of humor and mockery. The parade of men reminds us the imbalance in gender relations in Albania. The way Blloshmi places them and the details that surround each character, are a sharp criticism to morality and suggest that morality and honor cannot be found in the down half of the body, but is rather determined by the behavior and actions of individuals as social beings,” curator Edi Muka described.
Blloshmi’s satire with Albanian politicians has been brought in a miniature series of the main political figures that had led the country in the last 25 years. The only female image among her works is herself, as the paradoxical image of Shiva, which is known as both the destroyer and the restorer.
Besides being a retrospective of the last 25 years of her art, the exhibition reinforces the fact that Blloshmi is one of the first female artists that brought media installations and performances in Albania. Her work in the visual arts began during the years 1973-1974, a delicate period in the Albanian art, but Blloshmi managed to create and avoid the pressure of time focusing on landscape and still life.
During the early 90s, Blloshmi quickly became part of the artists who brought the modern and postmodern art through performances and installations for the first time in Albania. In the recent years, Blloshmi has held various exhibitions in Tirana, Durres, and Korca.
