from scratch
April 23–November 27, 2022
Artist: Lumturi Blloshmi
Curator: Adela Demetja
Assistant Curator: Eni Derhemi
Commissioner: Ministry of Culture of Albania
With from scratch, Lumturi Blloshmi (1944–2020) is the first female artist to represent Albania with a solo presentation at the Venice Biennale and Adela Demetja the first Albanian female curator of the Pavilion.
The presentation under the title Lumturi Blloshmi: From scratch is conceived as an exhibition aiming at researching, presenting and positioning the work and life of Lumturi Blloshmi anew within the national and international art history. Blloshmi was one of the most interesting Albanian artists but due to limitations (deaf from the age of five, oppressed by the communist regime for political reasons, being a women 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 oeuvre - strongly informed by imagination and transformation - 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 has created a film in the form of an experimental documentary, aiming at capturing Blloshmi’s life story, attitude and spirit. Through a virtual archive created by British virtual reality artist Alexander Walmsley, the viewer will have the possibility to get an overview of Blloshmi’s personal world and creative environment.
Lumturi Blloshmi was born in 1944 in Tirana. 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 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 as a result of an infection with Covid-19.
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.
The Albanian Pavilion is supported by the Albanian Culture Ministry, Gwärtler Foundation and DigitAlb.
Press inquiries
Nadia Fatnassi, T +33 652 086 908 / nadia [at] closeencounters.fr
