Data:
| Article number | 1642730 |
| Price | 23,80 € |
Description:
Edi Hila
25.04.2025 - 05.10.2025 | Special exhibition | Exhibition catalogue | Language German/English
The members' price is reserved exclusively for members of the Freunde der Kunsthalle e.V.
Edi Hila | Thea Djordjadze is a cross-generational double exhibition of two important artists from Albania and Georgia, both countries with a communist past linked to the Soviet Union and the history of Eastern Europe and Western Asia.
Edi Hila (*1944 in Shkodër, Albania) is an important and highly acclaimed artist of the Balkan region who has witnessed and captured the social and political history of Albania and is often referred to as the ‘painter of Albanian transformation’. This major survey exhibition of Edi Hila at the Hamburger Kunsthalle (Germany) and the Moderna Museet Malmö (Sweden), was initiated and curated by Dr. Corinne Diserens and Joa Ljungberg and prepared in close dialogue with the artist.
Among the works on display, which trace key moments in the artist's formative early creative period, is Edi Hila's famous 1971 painting Planting of Trees, whose expressive use of colour and form (which contradicted the accepted doctrine of socialist realism) led to him being sentenced to three years of forced labour. In addition, the exhibition explores Hila's artistic practice in the 1990s, when the artist closely observed life after the fall of dictator Enver Hoxha's regime and depicted the realities of Albania's transformation on the eve of the new millennium.
By limiting himself to a palette of muted colours and systematically excluding superfluous details, Hila creates dense compositions that go beyond simple narratives. Series such as Comfort, Migrations, Paradox, Threat, Road-side Objects, Transitional Landscapes, Penthouse, Relations, Martyrs of the Nation Boulevard and A Tent on the Roof of a Car reflect aspects of social upheaval while conveying a sense of awe tempered by melancholy and subtle irony.
Layers of architectural history and the ever-changing urban environment of Albanian cities and communities often form the setting of his images. The famous master plan with its complex of public buildings in the centre of Tirana, designed by the Florentine architect Gherardo Bosio during the fascist regime, was the main inspiration for Edi Hila's Boulevard series. In these paintings, which resemble the backdrops of tactical war video games, a profound visual language draws the viewer into a world without shadows and with few signs of human life.
The exhibition also focuses on Edi Hila's most recent works, which reveal the limits and pitfalls of transformation rather than its promise, offering careful observations and subtle psychological insights.
Edi Hila lives and works in Tirana, Albania. From the 1990s he was Professor and Dean at the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Arts Tirana.
Curator Dr Corinne Diserens | Assistant curator Leona Marie Ahrens | Research assistant Jana Pfort
200 pages | hardcover | 30 × 26.6 cm | published by Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther und Franz König
25.04.2025 - 05.10.2025 | Special exhibition | Exhibition catalogue | Language German/English
The members' price is reserved exclusively for members of the Freunde der Kunsthalle e.V.
Edi Hila | Thea Djordjadze is a cross-generational double exhibition of two important artists from Albania and Georgia, both countries with a communist past linked to the Soviet Union and the history of Eastern Europe and Western Asia.
Edi Hila (*1944 in Shkodër, Albania) is an important and highly acclaimed artist of the Balkan region who has witnessed and captured the social and political history of Albania and is often referred to as the ‘painter of Albanian transformation’. This major survey exhibition of Edi Hila at the Hamburger Kunsthalle (Germany) and the Moderna Museet Malmö (Sweden), was initiated and curated by Dr. Corinne Diserens and Joa Ljungberg and prepared in close dialogue with the artist.
Among the works on display, which trace key moments in the artist's formative early creative period, is Edi Hila's famous 1971 painting Planting of Trees, whose expressive use of colour and form (which contradicted the accepted doctrine of socialist realism) led to him being sentenced to three years of forced labour. In addition, the exhibition explores Hila's artistic practice in the 1990s, when the artist closely observed life after the fall of dictator Enver Hoxha's regime and depicted the realities of Albania's transformation on the eve of the new millennium.
By limiting himself to a palette of muted colours and systematically excluding superfluous details, Hila creates dense compositions that go beyond simple narratives. Series such as Comfort, Migrations, Paradox, Threat, Road-side Objects, Transitional Landscapes, Penthouse, Relations, Martyrs of the Nation Boulevard and A Tent on the Roof of a Car reflect aspects of social upheaval while conveying a sense of awe tempered by melancholy and subtle irony.
Layers of architectural history and the ever-changing urban environment of Albanian cities and communities often form the setting of his images. The famous master plan with its complex of public buildings in the centre of Tirana, designed by the Florentine architect Gherardo Bosio during the fascist regime, was the main inspiration for Edi Hila's Boulevard series. In these paintings, which resemble the backdrops of tactical war video games, a profound visual language draws the viewer into a world without shadows and with few signs of human life.
The exhibition also focuses on Edi Hila's most recent works, which reveal the limits and pitfalls of transformation rather than its promise, offering careful observations and subtle psychological insights.
Edi Hila lives and works in Tirana, Albania. From the 1990s he was Professor and Dean at the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Arts Tirana.
Curator Dr Corinne Diserens | Assistant curator Leona Marie Ahrens | Research assistant Jana Pfort
200 pages | hardcover | 30 × 26.6 cm | published by Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther und Franz König
