I VEGGENTI
The Italian Embassy in Tirana presents the exhibition
I VEGGENTI.
Artists: Patrick Tuttofuoco, Andrea Anastasio
Curators: Davide Quadrio, Ajola Xoxa
in collaboration with Harabel Contemporary Art Platform, Arthub, and Capo d’Arte
Duration: 2021 July 21st – September 15th
Venue: Tirana, Albania
Old villa in Blloku area | Str. Ibrahim Rugova, in front of One Telecommunications
The Embassy of Italy in Tirana, in collaboration with Harabel Contemporary Art Platform, from 21st of July to 15th of September 2021 will present the exhibition I VEGGENTI in Tirana, by Patrick Tuttofuoco and Andrea Anastasio, curated by Davide Quadrio and Ajola Xoxa and created by Arthub with the coordination of Francesca Bonomo of the Capo d’Arte association.
This is the first episode of a journey that will culminate in 2022, when the two Italian artists, Patrick Tuttofuoco and Andrea Anastasio, protagonists of the project, will install in a public place in Tirana the results of their complex research carried out between architecture, relational space and history, where for the first time the two artists will exhibit together a series of artworks, many of which have been created ad hoc.
Belonging to different generations and different artistic practices, Tuttofuoco and Anastasio have accepted the invitation to work separately but jointly on a site specific project in Tirana, in which the reflection on the complex culture and history of Albania would meet with their artistic sensibilities.
Patrick Tuttofuoco has been working for decades in the public space, creating works that connect historical places of the area to contemporary pop culture: monumental installations, engaging architecture, enigmatic and totemic creations that surround the public with amusing and colorful emotions.
Andrea Anastasio is an artist who works with various media in the fields of design, architecture and visual arts. All his works have a strong philosophical and performative element: Anastasio interferes with matter and soul, always inventing new visual and emotional tricks.
The VEGGENTI exhibition has been a wish of the Italian Ambassador in Albania, Fabrizio Bucci and marks a new chapter in cultural relations between Italy and Albania.
“This project seals a new collaboration of contemporary art between our two countries. A journey of discovery, creativity and sharing realized in Albania by two great Italian artists. Their artworks, narrated by the twenty-year experience of Davide Quadrio and realized thanks to the fruitful collaboration with Harabel, I am sure will help to strengthen the value of public art in Tirana and to illustrate the link between history, mythology and Albanian contemporaneity in a new way”, explains Ambassador Bucci.
“Harabel sees “I VEGGENTI” not only an opportunity to present the Albanian public with a challenging and ironic artistic thinking, brought by the artists Patrick Tuttofuoco and Andrea Anastasio through an exhibition placed in an old villa which served as a house to the communist nomenclature before 1991, but also a fresh and teasing intervention in the city which will leave its echo through two public art installations that will be exhibited permanently”, says Ajola Xoxa, one of the founders of Harabel and co-curator of the exhibition.
“Capo d’Arte, a non-profit cultural association in Salento for the diffusion of contemporary art, is proud to promote a project that raises an awareness of the excellence of Italian contemporary art abroad, thus allowing us to look out over unknown artistic landscapes and explore different creative worlds in two countries as close as Albania and Italy “, says Francesca Bonomo, founder of Capo d’Arte.
“Coming from Italy and meeting such a rich and multilayered culture that has so much to give to the other side of the Adriatic Sea was a truly unexpected journey and a discovery that opens up a long-term path of research and collaboration” said Davide Quadrio, co-curator of the exhibition and founder of Arthub.
About the Exhibition
In the old villa on Str. Ibrahim Rugova which hosts the exhibition, the visitor will find himself on an itinerary that will first lead him to encounter four works by Tuttofuoco and two by Anastasio on the ground floor.
Calypso, Laelia, Cambria, by Tuttofuoco, three ceramic masks with a petal-like shape that stare at the viewer from the top of a rough metal support, placed like a military squad in charge to give the exhibition the protection of a male element. The three masks were produced thanks to Ceramiche Gatti, technical sponsor of the exhibition;
Time Capsule, also by Tuttofuoco, a mirror placed on the wall on which is printed an image of arms and hands intertwined, a gesture of resistance and commonality;
The Hours, by Anastasio, a great luster that transports the light from the ceiling to the floor, decontextualizing the light itself;
Room with a view, also by Anastasio, a wedding blanket that emerges from a white tile floor, creating a destabilizing gesture in the otherwise safe space of the house.
On the villa’s upper floor are the works that most directly reflect the artists’ common research on Albanian history and culture: two works by Anastasio that surround La Veggente, the work of Tuttofuoco.
The installation La Veggente (Androniqi Zengo) identifies and traces a fundamental moment in the recent history of Albania and its important cultural past: it refers to a portrait of Androniqi Zengo (1913 – 2000) one of the most iconic Albanian artists, almost a seer able to anticipate the times becoming crucial for future generations. Androniqi’s strength is focused in the third eye, a channeling point represented by an exotic and powerful flower, the fragile and at the same time strong orchid, a plant that lives through and with other plants, a flower imported into Europe as tangible proof of imperialist glory.
Through-2021, by Anastasio, a fragile and transparent curtain derived from a bas-relief created for the prime minister’s office in Tirana, a work of the communist period which is here deconstructed by transferring it onto a cotton curtain, resolving the heavy original piece in stone into a decorative object that allows the public to free themselves metaphorically from the weight of a legacy not so distant in time.
Celibe-2021, also by Anastasio: a choir sings traditional Albanian songs, songs for weddings or funerals, farewell and nostalgia songs. The choir sings but the sound is muffled, almost inaudible: it is broadcasted live on the other side of the Adriatic, from Salento Greece, near Lecce.
As an intercultural project, the exhibition I VEGGENTI stands as a milestone in the relationship between two countries so close yet so distant.
PRATICAL INFO
St. Ibrahim Rugova, vecchia villa di fronte al negozio One
Orari: 10 – 13 | 17 – 20
Tel.: +355 67 664 5757
email: info@harabel.com.al
PRESS CONTACT
PCM STUDIO di Paola C. Manfredi | Via Carlo Farini, 70 | 20159 Milano | www.paolamanfredi.com
Paola C. Manfredi | press@paolamanfredi.com
About
ANDREA ANASTASIO Born in Rome in 1961, he has studied philosophy and history of art, graduating from the Ca ‘Foscari University of Venice. Since the mid-eighties he has developed an original artistic path, influenced by masters such as Ettore Sottsass and Bruno Munari as well as by serial music, oriental religious thought and Islamic mystics. He has created projects for Artemide, Memphis-Milan, Design Gallery-Milan, Sawaya & Moroni and Danese, establishing himself as one of the protagonists of the new Italian design. At the same time he reinterpreted and demystified the culture of industrial design through art, opening a reflection on domestic spaces and the philosophy of living. In 1992 he moved to India where he contributed to the cataloging of Indian Islamic architecture for UNESCO and where he participated in innovation projects of traditional craft techniques. In the same years he collaborated with the architectural design studio Mehrotra Associates of Mumbai, with the Urban Design Research Institute of Mumbai and with the publishing house Tara Books of Chennai, with which he published “Fingerprints” in 2009 and “Alone in the Forest” in 2013. He exhibits since 2005 with: Alessandra Bonomo Gallery – Rome Corraini Gallery – Mantua Luisa Delle Piane Gallery – Milan Giustini Stagetti Gallery – Rome GallerySke – Bangalore, New Delhi His research focuses on the manipulation of objects, consumer goods and of subjects of the domestic context, in order to generate linguistic short circuits and sabotages of meaning. He is interested in the study of poetics and the potential convergences
Appointed Ambassador of Italian Design by MIBACT in 2018 and 2019.
PATRICK TUTTOFUOCO
DAVIDE QUADRIO
DAVIDE QUADRIO is a China based producer and curator. He founded and directed for a decade the first not-for-profit independent creative lab in Shanghai, Bizart Art Center, as a platform to foster the local contemporary art scene. In 2007 Quadrio created Arthub, a production and curatorial proxy active in Asia and worldwide. BizArt and Arthub archives were feature as highlight organizations active in China in the 2000’s in Art and China after 1989: Theatre of the World, Guggenheim New York, NYC and Bilbao. Archives of the 20 years activities of BizArt and Arthub are available in the triplet publication by Mousee Publishing.
Hewas hosted by Shanghai Visual Art Institute (2011-2017), curated and produced the monumental City Pavilion Project for the Shanghai Biennale 2012 with 38 global cities represented, five venues spread all around Shanghai with Palermo as the only Italian city presented. He was the curator for contemporary Art in Aurora Museum (2013-2016).
In 2015 he founded Kaleidoscope Asia a sibling publication of Kaleidoscope Magazine, with the intention of developed it as an international platform presenting Asia at its best (2015-2017).
With BizArt and its team, and now with Arthub, Quadrio has organized hundreds of exhibitions, educational activities and exchanges in China and abroad, developing relationships with local and foreign institutions worldwide. Among the most recent activities: Visions on the making with Stefania Galegati, Natascia Fenoglio and Marta Roberti, Italian Cultural Institute, New Delhi; Visiting with Alessandro Sciarroni, Andrea Anastasio and Stefano Arienti, Darat Al Funun, Amman, Jordan; Temporary Shelter by Zhang Enli, Galleria Borghese, Rome; Journeys Without Arrivals by Qiu Zhijie (Vanabbe Museum; Centre d’Art Contemporaine de Geneve; Kunstalle Lund); Jingshen contemporary Chinese painting, PAC, Milan; Paola Pivi Tulkus 1898-2018 (Castello di Rivoli; Witte de With; Frac Dijon); Yang Fudong, Toronto Film Festival 2013; Jompet Kuswidanto, Gervasuti Foundation, and the first retrospective in Europe by Xijing Men, Bevilacqua la Masa, Venice.
He produced the 13th Gwangju Biennale, Korea, directing and producing also the Procession: through the Gates, a multi layered performance that kicked off the Biennale ( the filmed based of this activation is available on Arthub website http://arthubasia.org/screening). He just won the Italian Council for the project Fluxo, due November 2021 with Alessandro Sciarroni, premier Hangar Bicocca, Milan and May 2022 in Ming Museum, Shanghai. He is currently directing a film on contemporary art between India and Italy as extremes of a complex multi- cultural territory that see Italy and India as metaphorical points of departures and returns.
From October 2020 is a visiting professor at IUAV, Venice in the Visual art and fashion department.
HARABEL
Harabel is a non-profit organization based in Tirana that focuses on the promotion of contemporary art. Born out of the necessity to make contemporary art a commonwealth, free and accessible to all, Harabel aims to become a catalyzer of urban interventions and indoor reflections, by offering an interdisciplinary space for experimentation and research and has a sustainable collaboration with contemporary artists, alongside researchers, curators, architects, sociologists, publishers, scientists and other professionals, with the intention to involve the city in its diverse social and educational aspects.
Harabel was founded in 2018 by cultural promoter Ajola Xoxa and artist Driant Zeneli.
www.harabel.com.al
CAPO D’ARTE
Capo d’Arte is an Italian non-profit organization dedicated to contemporary art.
It was founded in 2009 by Francesca Bonomo and Francesco Petrucci, with the idea of bringing the most advanced forms of art to Gagliano del Capo: a tiny village at the tip of Puglia, an area which had rarely experienced it before.
Ever since its inception, Capo d’Arte has staged summer exhibitions featuring the work of renown international artists, in the context of a land overlooking the Mediterranean, which has always been acting as a crossroad between Europe, the Balkans, the Middle East and North Africa. Furthermore, since 2016 the association is a partner of the French Academy in Rome. Every year, they co-organize in Gagliano del Capo projects and exhibitions with artists who are in residence at Villa Medici.
www.capodarte.it
ARTHUB
Arthub is a Shanghai based and Hong Kong registered not-for-profit platform devoted to contemporary art creation and diffusion. Arthub (born in 2007 as Arthub Asia), stemmed from the desire of exploring and experimenting with the possibilities of collaborative platforms. It took off at a time of urgency, when Chinese contemporary artistic practices had a short history of structural development and faced contradictions and problems of “translation,” especially in regards to methodologies of research within the Chinese and Asian context at large. Acting as a transcultural mediator, Arthub orchestrates collaborations between Asian and overseas artists and institutions through the production of artworks, exhibitions, publications and educational activities. In this capacity, Arthub Asia is a proxy, an experiment that aims to connect likeminded local and global creative people, pooling at the same time some degree of authority on the Asian visual art spectrum. www.arthubasia.org