Venice: Albanian Pavilion at the 60th International Art Exhibition

It was inaugurated Love as a Glass of Water, the Iva Lulashi exhibition curated by Antonio Grulli which represents the Albanian Pavilion at the 60th Venice Biennale. The opening ceremony took place in the presence of the Albanian authorities, the commissioner Blendi Gonxhja, Minister of Economy, Culture and Innovation, the mayor of Tirana Erion Veliaj, the curator Antonio Grulli and the artist Iva Lulashi.

Love as a Glass of Water is inspired by “glass of water theory” which dates back to the Russian pre-revolutionary period and is linked to the radical and feminist thinker Alexandra Kollontai (St. Petersburg, 1872 – Moscow, 1952). This is a theory based on the idea of a sexual revolution in which impulses are seen as a simple human necessity which must be satisfied with the lightness and carefreeness with which we usually drink a glass of water. She had a great influence on the artistic and literary circles of those years, but was immediately opposed by the revolutionary political apparatus.

The metaphor of the glass of water may seem at first sight to refer only to the simplicity with which it is drunk. But we must not forget that water is the basis of life, just like love. Love, sex and desire are still today the last great force that is eternally revolutionary by its constitution, over which power, be it political, economic or ideological, is unable to firmly impose its control. It is a suprapolitical and existential force, similar to that of water: elusive, sometimes peaceful, but capable of breaking down any obstacle.

Love, desire – especially female – drive and sexuality are at the center of Iva Lulashi’s work: universal subjects capable of transcending differences and overcoming borders, not just geographical ones. The images of his paintings are generally taken from stills of erotic and pornographic films and videos, usually little known, which act as the initial detonator of the painting. They are populated mainly by female bodies and suggest situations potentially linked to the erotic act – almost as if they were “immediately before” or “immediately after” – without explicitly showing it. The ability to find and recreate images is one of the artist’s strengths. The paintings emerge for their “photographic” attitude, but upon closer inspection they appear strongly pictorial, made of a livid liquidity, of synthetic brushstrokes devoid of any affectation, which leave many parts of the painting deliberately unresolved and almost abstract . They are a hymn to female desire, with all that it still carries with it in terms of strength, fear, hope, desire for freedom, dark sides, vitality: themes inseparable from a past that has not yet passed, full of problems and global political issues , which you have to deal with every day and every night.

The very concept of the Pavilion in its physicality is very simple and radical: we brought the painter’s house/studio inside the Arsenale of Venice, projecting the plan into the area of ​​the Albanian Pavilion. In this way the public can see the paintings in the place where they are born and live before “going out into the world”. It is a pavilion that in turn becomes a work of art, a gigantic sculpture capable of becoming a display for paintings, between intimacy, voyeurism, and sensuality. The floor plan and some details immediately communicate the type of place you are in, although the house has been stylized and everything has been reduced to a minimum, with no furniture and no windows. Iva’s home/studio in Milan has been an essential meeting place for friends and colleagues in recent years. Iva has organized several exhibitions inside with the help of curator friends; it is therefore also a curatorial space, a symbolic place for Milan and for the new generation of painters.… read the rest of the article”