59. Biennale – Padiglione Albanese

Il progetto “Lumturi Blloshmi. From scratch” rappresenta l’Albania alla Biennale di Venezia.

Comunicato stampa

LA BIENNALE DI VENEZIA
59TH INTERNATIONAL ART EXHIBITION
APRIL 23–NOVEMBER 27, 2022

Lumturi Blloshmi
from scratch
Pavilion of Albania at the Venice Biennale

Preview: April 20–22, 2022
Inauguration: April 21, 12:15pm

Curator: Adela Demetja
Assistant Curator: Eni Derhemi
Commissioner: Ministry of Culture of Albania

www.albanianpavilion2022.com
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With from scratch, Lumturi Blloshmi (1944-2020) is the first female artist to represent Albania with a solo presentation in Venice and Adela Demetja the first Albanian female curator of the Albanian Pavilion.

In Venice, the presentation under the title “Lumturi Blloshmi. From scratch” is conceived as an exhibition project aiming at researching, examining, presenting, and positioning the work and life of Lumturi Blloshmi anew within the national and international art history.
Lumturi Blloshmi was one of the most singular Albanian artists of her time but due to limitations (deaf from the age of five, oppressed by the communist regime for political reasons, being a woman in a male dominated field) her work and life has not yet fully been researched, displayed and contextualized. The heart of the exhibition consists of a selection of Blloshmi’s works from the 1960s until the 2010s, spanning self-portraits and compositions in painting and photography that say as much about Blloshmi’s aesthetic essence and personal reality as they do about the specific political and social context in which they were created. By remaining true to the unfiltered urge to express experience awareness, Blloshmi constantly pushed the boundaries of media and formal styles by experimenting with materials and combinations of media to achieve what she called “a distinct tangible universe.” Formally situated within the boundaries of figuration, her œuvre - strongly informed by imagination and innovation - at its core transmits and resonates a sense of universality and timelessness. The pavilion is conceived in such a way as to reflect Blloshmi’s tangible yet simultaneously ungraspable universe and its openness to interpretations.

The exhibition architecture is created by the German architect Johanna Meyer-Grohbrügge. Mexican filmmaker Tin Dirdamal is invited to create a film in the form of an experimental documentary that aims at capturing Blloshmi’s life story, attitude, and spirit. Through a virtual constructed environment, the viewer will have the possibility to get an overview and a feeling of Blloshmi's personal world and creative environment. This part, aiming at creating a virtual archive, is created in close collaboration between the curator and the British virtual reality artist Alexander Walmsley.
Lumturi Blloshmi
Born in 1944 in Tirana, Blloshmi was one of the most significant Albanian visual artists. Blloshmi’s father, an Officer of King Zog’s Army, was executed by the Communists when Lumturi was only two months old. At five years old she lost her hearing following a bout of meningitis. Blloshmi graduated from the Painting Department at the Academy of Arts in Tirana in 1968. Between 1974 and 1985, she was not allowed to continue her creative practice due to political reasons and had her first solo exhibition at the age of forty-four. Until 2004, Blloshmi worked in several institutions, including the National Gallery of Arts and Institute of Cultural Monuments in Tirana. Following this, she worked as an independent artist. Several of her works are included in the collection of the National Gallery of Art in Tirana. Her works have been shown among others in group and solo exhibitions in institutions like the Chelsea Art Museum in New York, Municipal Art Gallery of Bydgoszcz Poland, Alexandria Biennale for Mediterranean Countries Egypt, Albania National Gallery of Arts, Kosovo National Gallery of Arts. Lumturi passed away on 27 November 2020 because of an infection with Covid-19.
Adela Demetja
Adela Demetja is a curator born in Tirana, living and working between Frankfurt/Main and Tirana. She holds a master's degree in "Curatorial and Critical Studies" from Städelschule and Goethe University, Frankfurt/Main, Germany. She is the director of Tirana Art Lab – Center for Contemporary Art, an independent art institution which she established in 2010. As an independent curator she has organized and curated numerous international exhibitions in Europe and the US. Demetja became friends with Blloshmi in 2016 and became one of her close collaborators until the end of her life.

Johanna Meyer-Grohbrügge
Meyer-Grohbrügge is a german architect that lives and works in Berlin. She is teaching at DIA since 2010. She also taught at Columbia GSAPP, the Northeastern University Boston and the Washington University St. Louis.

Alexander Walmsley
Walmsley is a British virtual reality artist and developer based in Berlin. He comes from a back-ground in archaeology and anthropology (University of Cambridge, University of Geneva). He currently a research associate at the HafenCity University, Hamburg.

Tin Dirdamal
Dirdamal born 1982 in Mexico is a self-taught filmmaker and interdisciplinary artist
with formal studies in engineering. His films have been shown and awarded at Sundance, Visions du Reél, IDFA, La Mostra de Sao Paulo, BAFICI, FICUNAM, ARTE (TV). He currently lives in Albania.

Eni Derhemi
Derhemi born 1992 in Tirana, is an Albanian artist and curator. She holds a Bachelor Degree in Design & Arts from the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano and a Masters Degree in Visual Arts from the University of Bologna. In 2020 she co-founded Ecumene Project, where she has the role of project director, curator and researcher.

The Albanian Pavilion is supported by the Albanian Culture Ministry, Gwärtler Foundation, and DigitAlb.

The Albanian Pavilion is part of the Firsts Solidarity Network, initiated by Yuki Kihara representing New Zealand, an informal network comprised of artist/s who are a first-time representative from a marginalised or under-represented group in their respective country or a first time country participant at the Venice Biennale.
Singular may be more accurate?
PRACTICAL INFORMATION

Pavilion of Albania at the Venice Biennale
Arsenale, Venice, Italy

Artist: Lumturi Blloshmi
Curator: Adela Demetja
Commissioner: Ministry of Culture of Albania
image credit: Lumturi Blloshmi, Self-portrait (From the dream), 1968. Oil on Paper, 38.5x27.5cm. Photo © Albes Fusha. Courtesy of Lumturi Blloshmi Estate