Workers Leaving the Studio: Looking Away from Socialist Realism
- Edited by Vincent W.J. van Gerven Oei
- Photographed by Marco Mazzi
- Translated by Jonida Gashi, Vincent W.J. van Gerven Oei, Genti Gjikola
- Contributions by Santiago Sierra, Jonas Staal, Ciprian Mureșan, Irwin, Sarah Vanagt, Armando Lulaj
Published on October 1, 2015 by punctum books
- Pages
- 210 pages
- Languages
- Albanian, English
- Dimensions
- 7⤫10 in.
- ISBN (Paperback)
- ISBN: 978-0-692-48041-0 (Paperback)
- ISBN (PDF)
- ISBN: 978-0-692-48041-0 (PDF)
- BISAC subject codes
- BISAC: ART006010
- Thema subject codes
- THEMA: 1DXA, 3MPQ-DE-J, 6SL, AGC
Workers Leaving the Studio. Looking Away from Socialist Realism. catalogs the exhibition “Workers leaving the studio. Looking away from socialist realism.,” curated by Mihnea Mircan in the National Gallery of Arts in Tirana, Albania in 2015. According to Mircan, “The […] exhibition reflects on another projection machine, whose history and consequences, unlike cinema, are circumscribed by national boundaries, specific histories, and ideological configurations. The regime of production and representation of socialist realism radicalizes the violence that the creation of a new image does to its subject: it intensifies the fraught relation between refashioned representation and that which is represented. Its insistence on a particular, projective notion of reality is commensurate with the coercion of daily — cultural, social, emotional — life into a grid whose perspective lines and vanishing points carry heavy ideological charges. It enforces what it represents onto that which it represents, so that representation would replace reality.”
Apart from a full documentation of the exhibition by photographer Marco Mazzi, the catalogue also features theoretical and art-historical contributions, both in English and in Albanian, on socialist realist art as developed in Albania under the communist regime, as well as texts highlighting contemporary attempts to display political realities through progressive artistic practices.
Contents
Frontmatter (1–5)
Parathënie (7–8)
Artan Shabani
Curatorial Note (9–12)
Mihnea Mircan
Sali Shijaku’s "Zëri i Masës" and the Metaphysics of Representation in Albanian Socialist Realist Painting (25–39)
Raino Isto
Stateless Democracy (58–80)
Jonas Staal
Një kohë e shkuar në themel të kohës sonë (103–109)
Suzana Varvarica Kuka
The Nigerian Connection: On NSK Passports as Escape and Entry Vehicles (118–128)
Inke Arns
Disturbed Earth (141–160)
Sarah Vanagt, Tobias Hering
Ilustrimi i instruksioneve ose Gjigandi dhe Shkurtabiqi (161–175)
Alban Hajdinaj
The Production of "Hrönir": Albanian Socialist Realism and After (191–207)
Vincent W.J. van Gerven Oei
Biographies
Vincent W.J. van Gerven Oei studied composition, linguistics, conceptual art, and philosophy in the Netherlands, USA, and Switzerland. He studies under Christopher Fynsk at the Centre for Modern Thought at the University of Aberdeen and is Visiting Fellow at Tembusu College, National University of Singapore. The monograph Five Legal Interventions and the three-volume monumental survey Lapidari (punctum books, forthcoming) are currently in preparation. He has translated the work of Jean Daive, Alessandro De Francesco, Hervé Guibert, Dick Raaijmakers, Avital Ronell, and Nachoem Wijnberg, among others, and his writings have appeared in journals such as continent., Frakcija, nY, Parmentier, postmedieval, and Theory & Event. Van Gerven Oei is director of the Department of Eagles(opens in new tab) foundation in Tirana and runs multilingual publishing house Uitgeverij. He is also one of the founding editors of the journal Dotawo: A Journal of Nubian Studies. Van Gerven Oei lives and works in Tirana, Albania.
Vincent W.J. van Gerven Oei studied composition, linguistics, conceptual art, and philosophy in the Netherlands, USA, and Switzerland. He studies under Christopher Fynsk at the Centre for Modern Thought at the University of Aberdeen and is Visiting Fellow at Tembusu College, National University of Singapore. The monograph Five Legal Interventions and the three-volume monumental survey Lapidari (punctum books, forthcoming) are currently in preparation. He has translated the work of Jean Daive, Alessandro De Francesco, Hervé Guibert, Dick Raaijmakers, Avital Ronell, and Nachoem Wijnberg, among others, and his writings have appeared in journals such as continent., Frakcija, nY, Parmentier, postmedieval, and Theory & Event. Van Gerven Oei is director of the Department of Eagles(opens in new tab) foundation in Tirana and runs multilingual publishing house Uitgeverij. He is also one of the founding editors of the journal Dotawo: A Journal of Nubian Studies. Van Gerven Oei lives and works in Tirana, Albania.
Additional resources
Usage metrics
Genres
- Art+Aesthetics
- New Left Thought
Keywords
- Albania
- art theory
- cultural studies
- socialist realism