Page 28 - La Biennale di Venezia issue of World of Art Magazine

LA BIENNALE DI VENEZIA
58TH INTERNATIONAL ART EXHIBITION

ALBANIA
Maybe The Cosmos Is Not So Extraordinary
MAYBE THE Commissioner: Ministry of Culture Republic of Albania.
COSMOS IS NOT SO Curator: Alicia Knock.
EXTRAORDINARY, 2019,
TWO-CHANNEL VIDEO Exhibitor: Driant Zeneli.
INSTALLATION Venue: Arsenale

Maybe the cosmos is not so extraordinary (2019), is a sculptural
video installation which expands upon a multidisciplinary project
entitled Beneath a surface there is just another surface started in
2015 at Metallurgjik, a dystopian industrial complex, in the city of
Elbasan, Albania. The project and its title derive from the pioneering
science-fiction novel On the way to Epsilon Eridani (1983) by
Albanian physicist and writer Arion Hysenbegas. The installation
develops from a two-channel film set in the mines of Bulqize, a city
in the North-East of the country, where, since 1918, the chrome
mineral has been extracted. Chrome represents a key resource for
the industrial development of Albania and collides with economic
and political conflicts in the Global South. The film stages a group
of teenagers from Bulqize discovering a cosmic capsule which
follows the journey of chrome, from its extraction and processing
within the factory to its exportation and worldwide exploitation. This
“geopolitical” space travel therefore turns this shady and dramatic
industrial environment into an ambivalent space for collapse and
takeoff. Through binary storytelling, precise choreography of image
and sound, the factory operates not only as an industrial space or
geopolitical hub but as a visually performative force. (excerpt)

ANDORA

The Future is Now
PHILIPPE SHANGTI Commissioner: Eva Martínez, “Zoe”.
LOSTPARADISE 02 Curators: Ivan Sansa, Paolo De Grandis.
Exhibitor: Philippe Shangti.
Venue: Istituto Santa Maria della Pietà, Castello

The Andorran Pavilion presents a provocative proposal of
speculative fiction in which Philippe Shangti rouses the collective
consciousness with his vision of the world. It is a fragmented
installation of bits and snatches which should be examined
separately in order to understand this multidisciplinary project:
a criticism of exacerbated consumerism and its effects. Philippe
Shanti is a multifaceted artist. He was born in Toulouse (France)
in 1983and he lives in Andorra. Shangti’s passion for photography
arose at a very early age, when he was given his first camera, which
he came to use extensively. Later, his bold character and life itself
led him to Saint-Tropez, where he came upon a world that took
drugs and concealed itself in superficiality. He dared to portray
it, showing women marked by a confusion of vulnerability and
strength, as may be seen in the monumental photograph Goodness
of Oxygen, depicting a woman entwined between what is divine
and that which is most purely materialistic, doing business with the
very air we breathe. Both Gate of Lost Paradise Park and Soul Tree
Museum portray plainly evil actions and the consequences of our
misguided way of doing things.(excerpt)

28 WORLD of ART