Armando Lulaj. Albanian Trilogy. A Series of Devious Stratagems. Edited by Marco Scotini

Armando Lulaj. Albanian Trilogy. A Series of Devious Stratagems. Edited by Marco Scotini
Contributions by Jonida Gashi, Boris Groys, Hou Hanru, Armando Lulaj, Elidor Mëhilli, Edi Muka, Marco Scotini

Published by Sternberg Press, Design by Dallas

May 2015, English
308 pages, 150 b/w and 101 color ill., hardcover
ISBN 978-3-95679-146-8

This catalogue-reader accompanies Armando Lulaj’s project for the 56th Venice Biennale. Curated by Marco Scotini, Lulaj’s exhibition in the Albanian Pavilion is a time capsule of the country’s past, presenting strange memorabilia and trophies that tread the line between fact and fiction. Combining evocation and documentation, Lulaj concentrates on a historic-political phase that was extremely important for building an identity that was not just Albanian but also international. On display are three videos and archival materials, as well as an enormous whale’s skeleton, which is both protagonist and silent witness—an incarnation of the giant Leviathan, the Hobbesian principle of sovereignty. Parallel to the exhibition, this collection of essays, film stills, and original and archival photographs ruminates on communism’s mechanisms of power and socializing myths through the lens of Albania’s geopolitical situation. The publication in turn offers another process of mythologizing.