IVA LULASHI portfolio 2020 - Prometeo Gallery

IVA LULASHI
     portfolio 2020

Iva Lulashi (1988) was born in Tirana, Albania. In 2016
she graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Venice.

Her work starts from traces found, scene photos or frames
that reflect the visual language of an Albanian story,
which has never been consciously lived where it begins
to incorporate erotic movies, confusing the border between
the communist propaganda stills in the movies, scenes of
sex, and healthy outdoor activities.

She lives and works in Milan.

Eroticommunism
                                                          2018
                                                          Solo show at Prometeogallery di Ida Pisani, Milan

Press release

The paintings here exhibited – realised by the artist     Lulashi develops a creative and strongly ethical
for this event – form a visual itinerary skilfully        and political pictorial process that mutates into an
crafted that unveils through personal thought and         aesthetic strategy aimed at a critique of the pervasive
collective dimension, the public and the private,         mount of images that from the media and drown our
politics, society, and desire. At the same time,          senses daily.
she proves to have knowledge of the international         Each painting is a testimony of a fight against
masters of painting, whose influences are deeply          the visual stereotypes presented by the media.
engrained in her canvases. These are blended              At the same time, they denounce the control and
together to perfection with the artistic tradition of     brainwashing that the political and economic power
her home country, Albania. These two features are         has on the personal sphere (whether of thought,
synthesised to create her peculiar style of painting.     gender, morals, customs, and behaviours), operated
A style that favours subtle traits, a delicate sfumato,   through images and their massive spreading.
almost “out of focus”, which contemplates the force       The artist harmoniously mixes her biographic
of images and of the medium and frees itself from         dimension, through tales and her family’s memory,
documentary significance and from references to           with that of a universal conside-ration; more
reality, in order to offer a privileged point of view –   importantly, she succeeds in creating a functioning
almost voyeuristic – to the onlooker.                     dialectic where politics – the communism appearing
                                                          in the title – is woven with the more private dimension
                                                          of the Self, eroticism. In the artist’s poetics,
                                                          eroticism represents the last banner symbolising the
                                                          defence of free will, individual freedom, and respect
                                                          of differences.

Eroticommunism, general view

Palpebre chiuse
2017, oil on canvas, 25 × 30 cm

Prepenem
2018, oil on canvas, 20 × 20 cm

Son tua
2018, oil on canvas, 30 × 30 cm

Li ho persi tutti                 Li ho persi tutti, 2018
2018, oil on canvas, 25 × 30 cm           oil on canvas
                                         25 cm x 30 cm

Nostalgia imponente
2018, oil on canvas, 30 × 25 cm

Eroticommunism, general view

Love as a glass of water
Premio Cairo 2018
Palazzo Reale, Milan

Premio Cairo 2018
                                                                                             Installation view
                                                                                          Love as a glass of water

Love as a glass of water, general view
2018, 5 oils on canvas, clockwise from top: 60 × 50 cm, 30 × 30 cm, 50 × 40 cm, 15 × 15 cm, 25 × 30 cm

Love as a glass of water (detail)
2018, oil on canvas, 50 × 40 cm

Love as a glass of water (detail)
2018, oil on canvas, 15 × 15 cm

Love as a glass of water (detail)
2018, oil on canvas, 60 × 50 cm

Collezione
Giuseppe Iannaccone
Selected works

I’ve been gone too long
2017, oil on wood plate, 12 × 12,8 × 1,5 cm

Gli amanti
2016, oil on canvas, 25 × 30 cm

È invisibile e non si sente l’odore
2016, oil on canvas, 25 × 30 cm

Elusive eyes
2017, oil on canvas, 24 × 18 cm

Vicino altrove
2020
Duo show with Regina José Galindo
at Prometeogallery di Ida Pisani, Milan

Press release, ARTFORUM

“Vicino altrove” (Nearby Elsewhere), a two-person show of work
by Regina José Galindo and Iva Lulashi, established a convincing
duet despite the age difference between the two artists—Galindo
was born in 1974, Lulashi in 1988—and their far-flung origins
in Guatemala and Albania, respectively. Their work is very
dissimilar, too: Galindo creates performance and video, while
Lulashi is a painter.
(...) Lulashi paints personal, individual stories, sometimes
rooted in some distant memory of collective violence, as
in Avversario dell’ordine (Opponent of Order), 2019. But
the imagery is more often marked by remembrances of
postadolescent eroticism, in which desire is tamped down by
the timidity of a young person venturing out into a territory that
still feels strange and unknown, as in Visibile e mobile (Visible
and Mobile), 2020, in which we see a young couple who have
taken their rowboat into a spot surrounded by foliage; the girl
seems about to remove her bathing suit. Lulashi’s paintings are
strongly evocative, conjuring never-quite-told stories amid
settings that, for the grown-up person now recalling them, take
on an Edenic gleam, though they were really just next door.

Marco Meneguzzo (Translated from Italian by Marguerite Shore)

General view

Ibidem
2020, oil on canvas, 100 × 70 cm

Visibile e mobile
2020, oil on canvas, 100 × 150 cm

Double speeches
2020, oil on canvas, 90 × 100 cm

Le disavventure della virtù
2019, oil on canvas, 90 × 120 cm

Avversario dell’ordine
2019, oil on canvas, 90 × 100 cm

Selected works
2018 - 2020

Lei disse che la logica...
2019, oil on canvas, 100 × 80 cm
Collection of Videoinsight Foundation, on view at Ciò che vedo, Nuova figurazione in Italia, 2020, Mart Museo di Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Trento e Rovereto

Lo dici anche a Irene?
2020, oil on canvas, 30 × 40 cm

Tu fosti frutta
2018, oil on canvas, 40 × 30 cm

Dell’ombra e dell’aspettativa
2020, oil on canvas, 25 × 30 cm

All invited
2020, oil on canvas, 30 × 25 cm

Il primo mese
2020, Olio su tela, 30 × 30 cm

VOI
2020, oil on canvas, 25 × 30 cm

Untitled
2020, oil on canvas, 40 × 40 cm

Incompiuta missione che nell’alba riappare
2020, oil on canvas, 90 × 70 cm

Curriculum Vitae

Solo shows                                           2020
                                                     Ti Bergamo, a cura di L. Giusti e V. Ghervasoni,
2020                                                 GAMeC Bergamo                                        Toffolutti, Galleria Spazzapan, Gradisca d’Isonzo
Vicino e altrove, duo show with Regina José          L’arte è comunità, Collezione Fondazione San         Exgratia, a project by Adrian Paci, Collezione
Galindo, Prometeogallery di Ida Pisani, Milan        Patrignano, PART, Rimini                             Giuseppe Iannaccone, Milan
2018                                                 A volte penso che… Ex chiesa di San Matteo, Lucca    Apocundria, curated by Marta Cereda, Casa Testori,
Love as a glass of water, Salzburger Kunstverein,    Studiovisit,, virtual show, Fondazione Pini, Milan   Milan
Salzburg                                             Ciò che vedo, nuova figurazione in Italia, curated   Biennale Mediterranea, artistic director Driant
Eroticommunism, Prometeogallery di Ida Pisani,       by Alfredo Cramerotti and Margherita De Pilati,      Zeneli, National gallery of Albania, Tirana
Milan                                                Mart di Trento e Rovereto                            Torre maluttona, Fondazione Malutta, Monitor
2017                                                 Sirene, curated by Rebecca Russo, Palazzo            gallery, Rome
Frames, Villa Rondinelli, curated by Carlo Sala,     dell’Archiginnasio, Bologna
Florence                                                                                                   2017
2016                                                 2019                                                 Idromeno prize, curated by Zef Paci and Artan
Where I feel there I am, Trart, Trieste and Miza     PASSING, Prometeo gallery di Ida Pisani, Miami       Dracini, Shkoder
gallery, Tirana                                      Libere Tutte, curated by Giuseppe Frangi e Daniele   Transparent travel, curated by The two Gullivers,
2015                                                 Capra, Casa Testori, Milan                           Arsenale e Giardini, Venice
Harmoni te imponuara, Tulla culture center, Tirana   BienNolo,      curated     by   Carlo      Vanoni,   Passengers that come and go, Fondazione Malutta,
Group shows                                          Artcitylab,Matteo Bergamini, Milan                   Tulla culture center, Tirana
                                                     Autostrada biennale, curated by Giacinto Di          Residencies and workshop: Forte Marghera,
                                                     Pietrantonio, Prizren                                Venice, Het Entrepot, Bruges, Nata Wien, Salzburg,
                                                     San Patrignano work in progress, Palazzo Vecchio,    Arthouse, Shkoder, Viafarini, Milan, Boxart,
                                                     Florence                                             Cosenza, Fondazione Macc, Calasetta
                                                     Heavenly creatures, curated by Alessandro            Prize: Participation at Cairo Prize, Combat Prize,
                                                     Romanini, Kunsthalle West Lana, Bolzano              Francesco Fabbri Prize
                                                     Simply untitled, Isorropia Homegallery, Milan
                                                     2018
                                                     L’occhio irresponsabile, curated by Paolo

Iva Lulashi
lulashiiva@gmail.com
+39 347 098 6969

Prometeogallery di Ida Pisani
Via Giovanni Ventura, 6 - Milan
info@prometeogallery.com