Shake it, Shake it

TIRANA, May 11 – A public installation by Albanian artist, New York based Helidon Gjergji has become part of the show About Face organized by No Longer Empty and part of the Festival of Ideas of the New Museum of Contemporary Art in the United States.
Shake It, Shake It is a public work that thematizes both the prospect and allure of demolition. The installation of an excavator with a disco ball on the Bowery, presents an artistic gesture confronting the diversity of a neighborhood under historical demolition. Gjergji’s Shake It, Shake It acts as an artistic line of defense in the face of gentrification.
According to Helidon Gjergji, New York City’s invaluable asset of cosmopolitanism often results in the demolition of neighborhoods in a movement toward gentrification. Many buildings in the Lower East Side where the current exhibition is located are ear-marked for demolition. While these buildings wait their verdict from the local government, these empty spaces are in limbo between the wrecking ball and the seal of history. On a street in the area a wrecking ball vehicle was positioned for one day. The metal ball was covered in mirror pieces so that it resembled a disco ball. This violent but musing sculpture aims to impact on the consciousness of a neighborhood, whose diversity risks becoming the mere wreckage of history.
Helidon Gjergji wants art to be not the first sign of gentrification, but the first line of defense against its implementation.