Albanian-born, Paris-based artist Anri Sala is represent France at the 55th International Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia. Sala’s project, entitled Ravel Ravel Unravel (2013)
TIRANA, June 6 – Albania is not participating in the 2013 Venice Biennale international art exhibition but two Albanian artists are representing France and Italy with their contemporary art creations.
Albania did not participate in this year’s Venice Biennale because of lack of government funding, sparking anger among artists and curators who consider the Venice Biennale one of the most important international events to promote Albanian art.
Albania has participated at the Venice International Art Exhibition only twice in 2007 and 2011. Albania made its first ever participation in the 2007 Venice Biennale with Helidon Gjergji, Gent Gjokola, Alban Hajdinaj, Armando Lulaj and Heldi Pema in a pavilion curated by United States’ Bonnie Clearwater. After missing the 2009 edition, Albania was back in the 2011 Venice Biennale with the “Geopathies” exhibition curated by Italian Riccardo Caldura.
Anila Rubiku, Orion Shima, Gentian Shkurti, Eltjon Valle and Driant Zeneli were the five Albanian artists selected for this exhibition.
Albania’s Geopathies exhibition condensed the curatorial idea of identifying a close relationship between the work of art and the geographical, historical and social context. “The works were conceived as privileged dots of relief to catch aspects from another reality other than the every-day one,” organizers say in a statement.
Anri Sala for France
Albanian-born, Paris-based artist Anri Sala is representing France at the 55th International Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia. Sala’s project, entitled Ravel Ravel Unravel (2013) and curated by Christine Macel, Chief Curator at Centre Pompeidou-MNAM, has been conceived for the German Pavilion space. The exchange of the German and French pavilions is part of an agreement marking the fiftieth anniversary of the ElysꥠTreaty and celebrating Franco-German friendship.
The title of the piece is a subtle play on words based on the verb to ravel and its opposite, to unravel, as well as a reference to the famous French composer Maurice Ravel, who in 1930 composed a piano concerto for the left hand which is at the heart of Anri Sala’s project.
Occupying the central space of the German Pavilion, the first of two works, entitled Ravel Ravel, consists of two films, each focused on the left hand of a famous pianist: Louis Lortie and Jean-Efflam Bavouzet. Both of these performers were invited by Anri Sala to perform Ravel’s Concerto, accompanied by the Orchestre National de France.
At the centre of Anri Sala’s project is the interpretation of the same piece of music by these two musicians. As the artist explains “each film is focused on the choreography of the left hand encompassing the entirety of the keyboard, while the right hand remains still.” These two films are projected simultaneously in semi-anechoic chambers creating the perception of a musical “race”, owing to the shift between the tempi. Anri Sala continues: “My intention, is to make a space resound consecutively to the temporal gap between the two performances; to paradoxically create a ‘different’ space in an environment conceived to annihilate the feeling of space (by suppressing echoes)”
Sisley Xhafa for Italy
Meanwhile, Kosovo-born Sislei Xhafa is one of the 14 artists representing Italy in its Vice Versa / seven rooms/ fourteen artists.
Vice versa picks up on a concept introduced by Giorgio Agamben in his book Categorie italiane. Studi di Poetica (1996), in which the philosopher maintained that in order to interpret Italian culture, we must identify a “series of diametrically linked concepts” capable of describing its underlying characteristics – binomials like tragedy/comedy, architecture/vagueness and speed/lightness thus become original keys for reading the fundamental works and artists of our cultural history.
Sislej Xhafa was born in Peja (Kosovo) in 1970, and lives and works in Brussels and New York.
Through diversified forms of expression, Xhafa uses irony and intelligence to shed light on the complexity of themes connected to immigration and the profound political and cultural differences among the countries he has passed through. His investigations on the phenomena of illegality, tourism and immigration for example, are manifested through minimal forms that are at once subversive and ironic.
Kosovo’s participation
For the first time in history the Republic of Kosovo is represented at the Venice Biennale, where the young artist Petrit Halilaj has developed a new site-specific installation.
Transnational existence is not only an increasing reality of contemporary life but is also the starting point for Petrit Halilaj’s installation in the Kosovo Pavilion at the Venice Biennale. The installation incorporates the artist’s observations of the world that surrounds him, which he records through drawings, notes and texts. What will emerge is a space of experience filled with struggles, longings, loss and the search for identityأontrasting reality with Petrit Halilajճ own counter-proposal of a world that becomes a poetic setting for unpredictable collective desires.
55th International Art Exhibition
The 55th International Art Exhibition will take place in Venice from June 1st to November 24th, 2013 at the Giardini and at the Arsenale. The title chosen by curator Massimiliano Gioni for the 55th International Art Exhibition is Il Palazzo Enciclopedico / The Encyclopedic Palace. Massimiliano Gioni introduced the choice of theme evoking the Italo-American self-taught artist Marino Auriti who “on November 16, 1955 filed a design with the US Patent office depicting his Palazzo Enciclopedico (The Encyclopedic Palace), an imaginary museum that was meant to house all worldly knowledge, bringing together the greatest discoveries of the human race, from the wheel to the satellite. Auriti’s plan was never carried out, of course, but the dream of universal, all-embracing knowledge crops up throughout history, as one that eccentrics like Auriti share with many other artists, writers, scientists, and prophets who have tried – often in vain – to fashion an image of the world that will capture its infinite variety and richness.”
Angola announced winner
Angola, exhibiting for the first time at the Venice Biennale, has been awarded the prestigious Golden Lion for the best national pavilion. Curated by Paula Nascimento and Stefano Rabolli Pansera, the exhibition, which was commissioned and supported by the Angolan Ministry of Culture, features a selection of photography, painting and sculpture in a novel setting.
