Post by art4net on Dec 24, 2001 15:58:14 GMT -5
Exhibition: TIRANA/TYRANNY
Dates: 23 January - 28 April 2002
CCCB (Barcelona) c/ Montalegre, 5 - 08001 Barcelona
Tirana: the capital of Albania
Tyranny: power of a single person, exercised with a view to oppression
Tirana/Tyranny: an exhibition about the human experience of tyranny, centring on the case of Albania (1944-1990)
Albania is a country forgotten by the world which reappearedto the eyes of public opinion in the form of images of ships filled to overflowing with Albania refugees in the docks of Italian ports from 1991 to 1997.
The year 1985 had seen the death of the Stalinist dictator Enver Hoxha.
Since 1945 he had dominated Albania with his bloody and paranoid rule, bringing about the country's total isolation from the rest of the world.
He exercised a tyranny which affected every aspect of Albania life: physical, psychological and aesthetic.
The exhibition Tirana/Tyranny takes as its point of departure this harsh reality as seen by the Albanian writer Bashkim Shehu, an exile in Barcelona since 1997. Using architectural references (symbolic constructions of the architecture of power), audiovisual montages, paintings and sculptures of socialist realism, statues of Communist leaders removed from public squares, books and photographs, Shehu dissects
the tyranny exerted by Hoxha and turns it into a metaphor. In this way, the exhibition extrapolates the case of Albania to many others which have occurred in the course of contemporary history.
For further information or graphic material, contact the Press Service of the CCCB
tel.: 93 306 41 00 / fax: 93 306 41 01 / troig@cccb.org /
www.cccb.org
Dates: 23 January - 28 April 2002
CCCB (Barcelona) c/ Montalegre, 5 - 08001 Barcelona
Tirana: the capital of Albania
Tyranny: power of a single person, exercised with a view to oppression
Tirana/Tyranny: an exhibition about the human experience of tyranny, centring on the case of Albania (1944-1990)
Albania is a country forgotten by the world which reappearedto the eyes of public opinion in the form of images of ships filled to overflowing with Albania refugees in the docks of Italian ports from 1991 to 1997.
The year 1985 had seen the death of the Stalinist dictator Enver Hoxha.
Since 1945 he had dominated Albania with his bloody and paranoid rule, bringing about the country's total isolation from the rest of the world.
He exercised a tyranny which affected every aspect of Albania life: physical, psychological and aesthetic.
The exhibition Tirana/Tyranny takes as its point of departure this harsh reality as seen by the Albanian writer Bashkim Shehu, an exile in Barcelona since 1997. Using architectural references (symbolic constructions of the architecture of power), audiovisual montages, paintings and sculptures of socialist realism, statues of Communist leaders removed from public squares, books and photographs, Shehu dissects
the tyranny exerted by Hoxha and turns it into a metaphor. In this way, the exhibition extrapolates the case of Albania to many others which have occurred in the course of contemporary history.
For further information or graphic material, contact the Press Service of the CCCB
tel.: 93 306 41 00 / fax: 93 306 41 01 / troig@cccb.org /
www.cccb.org