Armando Lulaj Albanian Trilogy: A Series of Devious Stratagems

The Albanian Pavilion at the 56th International Art Exhibition in Venice, La Biennale di Venezia Arsenale, 2015 External view. The pavilion’s display wants to maintain the constituent duplicity between the episodes of the past as starting points but also as escape points in their artistic re-enactment in the three films of Albanian Trilogy. In order to mark out the gap between the past and the present, the exhibition pavilion has been transformed into a double museum: on the one side, exhibits and documents in their original state are set out in a display and, on the other, their return in a different and altered state becomes visible in the cycle of video projections.

In 1968, during the Cultural and Ideological Revolution, when the relations between China and Albania reached their zenith, the Albanian LaborParty made a grandiose commitment to the magnificence of the figure of their despot, Enver Hoxha. Hundreds of young people were forcedto join the Albanian People's Army in this undertaking, covering a surface of 36,000 square meters with massive, white..painted stones, spellingout the dictator's first name on the steep side of Mount Shpirag overlooking Berat, the ancient, 2,500-year-old town. In 1993, after the fall of Communism, the Democratic Party came to power. At the party's order the army attempted to destroy the letters on the side of mountain, using napalmand heavy military equipment. The fire caused by the explosions failedto fully destroy the letters, while two soldiers were burned alive. After this defeat, time has passed by and what remained of the inscription was covered by bushes and weeds.

Film, RED transferred to Full HD, 8/W and Color, Sound 18'On May 25, 1959, at the height of the Cold War, Nikita Khrushchev visited Albania. Soviet plans to arm Enver Hoxha's state with submarines and warships, positioning long and medium-range missiles along the Albanian coast, were devised to counter the US missile bases installed in Italy in order to control the Mediterranean. A large number of young Albaniansailors took part in military training under the Soviet army. In 1963, after the break in relations with the USSR, the Albanian navy, in paranoid fear of enemy attack, sighted an object that repeatedly appeared and vanished in the sea off the coast at Patok. Believing it to be a submarine, they fired. The object was in fact a cachalot {Physeter macrocephalus L.. ), the Mediterranean sperm whale. After being recovered, its remains were displayed in the Natural History Museum in Tirana, where it canstill be found.

Film, RED transferred to Full HD8/W and Color, Sound 13'. On December 23, 1957, at 11:10 AM, a US Lockheed T-33 Shooting Star aircraft flown by Major Howard J. Curran left Chateauroux, France, heading for Naples, Italy. Above Turin, the aircraft radio failed and after hitting bad weather with strong winds, the plane veered off its flight path to end up, by mistake, in the sovereign airspace of the People's Republic of Albania. At 1:28 PM, the intruder was intercepted by the Albanian Air Force Command, which instantly ordered two MiG-15 fighter jets to take off and identify it. By 3:50 PM, the fighters reported that they had spotted the intruder in the area around Rinas Airport, flying at 500-650 km/hr at an altitude of 150-200 m. Prompt countermeasures were taken. The airplane was forced to land and, to keep it from taking off again, the airport was locked down.

The publication, in the form of a historical atlas, is published by Sternberg Press, Berlin and is edited by Marco Scotini and designed by Dallas (Francesco Valtolina & Kevin Pedron). The book is seen as an extension of the exhibition and includes the following essays:The Science of Whales: Narratives of power and invention of the enemy – Marco ScotiniWritten. (Erased.) Rewritten. – Elidor MëhilliMemories of Hybrid Communism. – Boris GroysThe War for Truth – A conversation between Hou Hanru and Armando LulajThe Poetic Violence of Decay – Edi MukaCinema and Performance in “Albanian Trilogy: A Series of Devious Stratagems” – Jonida Gashi