Armando Lulaj
Living in Memory, Video, 5’30”, 2004
The burning flames of a huge star on the hilltop of the city of Tirana stand as witness to a once-upon a-time-symbol of the efforts for a »better society« – the utopian model of which turned out to be a cruel history of suppression and persecution. By setting fire to a large five-pointed star in Living in Memory, Armando Lulaj is trying to purify the symbol from its own history. The gigantic yet short-lived star of Socialism is a symbol of yet another system adopting the star as a model of our oversaturated, mediabased reality. The piece is, however, not some kind of homage to either manifestation. What strikes in the video is, when the whole structure falls and the fire continues to consume every bit of it, only ashes remain – physical ashes of fire, symbolical ashes of history, and living ashes of memory of past and present power structures.
(Edi Muka/Joa Ljungberg)
Armando Lulaj
Born in 1980 in Tirana.
Lives and works in Tirana and Bologna.
Education:
Academy of Fine Arts: Florence. Master in Bologna.
Solo exhibitions:
2007 Time Out of Joint. Te Tuhi Center for the Arts.
New Zealand 2006 Mainstream Dissent. Artra
Gallery. Milano, Italy 2005 Temporary Autonomus
Zones. Insurgent Space. Tirana, Albania
Group exhibitions:
2009 8th Baltic Biennale of Contemporary Art, Szczecin
2008 Jungle Video. Public Space. Udine ››› Industrial
Lies. Dispari & Dispari. Reggio Emilia ››› Le sponde del
Mare. Terni 2007 Onufri 07. National Gallery, Tirana ›››
October. Art from the East. Artra Gallery, Milano ››› 52th
Venice Biennale. Albanian Pavillion, Venice ››› 4th
Gothenburg Biennale, Sweden ››› Prague Biennale 3, CZ
››› AdA. Aera d’azione. Imola ››› Opening Hours.
Rebecca Cahmi Gallery, Athens 2006 Onufri 06. GKA,
Tirana ››› Bunker no Bunker. Ramis Barquet Gallery,
Monterrey, Mexico ››› AYOR. No Mans Land. Hellenic
Foundation. Athens ››› Boundary Lines. Thesaloniki ›››
Mini Tirana Biennal at Apexart. New York 2005 Tirana
Biennale 3: Episode 1: Temptations, and Episode 3:
Democracies 2004 Glokal. National Gallery. Kosova ›››
Post-Albania. Kunst Raum Gallery. Hamburg ››› Space is
the Place, Bologna 2003 Tirana Biennale 2 U-Topos:
Debatikcenter of Contemporary Art. Tirana ››› Prague
Biennale 1, Prague 2002 Onufri 02. Small Brother.
National Gallery, Tirana ››› BalkanArt02, Novi Sad;
Awards: Onufri 2006. National Gallery, Tirana, Albania
