Iva Lulashi's free and desiring women are on display in Cinque Terre

From Aug. 8 to Sept. 30, 2021, theOratorio dei Disciplinati di Santa Caterina in Corniglia (La Spezia), one of the villages of the Cinque Terre, welcomes the contemporary painting of Iva Lulashi (Tirana, 1988), a young Albanian artist who is gaining increasing critical acclaim. As part of the solo exhibition Libere e desideranti (Free and Desiring ), the artist’s most recent paintings, made during 2021, are exhibited for the first time, all of them unpublished and inspired by a period Iva Lulashi spent precisely in the village of Corniglia. Thus, in the ancient heart of the Ligurian village, painting is confronted with an unprecedented space and context, in precious dialogue with the 18th-century architecture of the Oratorio dei Disciplinati and its simple but intact spiritual dimension, in close contact with the life that flows around, outside, in the alleys and squares and in the nature of the Cinque Terre.

The exhibition, realized thanks to the contribution of Fondazione Carispezia within the framework of the Bando Aperto 2021 in the Art and Culture sector, strongly desired by the Municipality of Vernazza and the brainchild of lawyer and collector Giuseppe Iannaccone, wants to be the first of a series of initiatives and exhibition events to be held in the Cinque Terre “so as to bring attention to these territories, not only for their great beauty, but also as lands of art,” suggests the mayor of Vernazza, Francesco Villa, who, in collaboration with Giuseppe Iannaccone, imagines in this context new possibilities dedicated in particular to young Italian art. Giuseppe Iannaccone says, “I came up with this idea thinking about the great artists who have fallen in love with the Cinque Terre over the years, among them I only mention Renato Birolli, Alighieri Boetti, and most recently Michelangelo Pistoletto, who welcomed this initiative with great enthusiasm.” On this occasion, a work by Iva Lulashi, chosen by the people of Corniglia from among those on display, will be donated to the town of Corniglia by the creator of the exhibition Giuseppe Iannaccone: “What I would like to create in the Cinque Terre is a landmark of young Italian art to be shown to the tourists who come here from all over the world in the summer.”

Iva Lulashi’s painting investigates the complexity of the collective dimension and individual experience, blending the boundaries between the spheres of the political, the social, and the lived. Starting with video fragments traced in the continuous flow of the web, Lulashi superimposes past memories and present imagery and places the centrality of the body, eroticism and desire in the determination of existence at the center of her reflection. After retracing the traces of a political past, the Albanian past, only partially lived, drawing on communist propaganda footage for the works that found space for the first time in 2018 in the group exhibition of Albanian artists organized in collaboration with Adrian Paci in Giuseppe Iannaccone’s studio in Milan and in the artist’s first solo exhibition at Prometeo Gallery in Milan, the artist’s research now focuses on the power and seduction of erotic images. By privileging an avowedly female point of view and transforming an aesthetic strategy into an ethical and political battle against dominant cultural and visual stereotypes, the field of painting aims to subvert the control that power exerts over the lives of individuals.

The exhibition is accompanied by a catalog with an interview and texts by Giuseppe Iannaccone, Antonio Grulli, Cristina Masturzo, Rischa Paterlini, Carlo Sala and Gloria Vergani. Iva Lulashi (1988) was born in Tirana, Albania. She lives and works in Milan, Italy. In 2016 she graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Venice. Her work starts from found traces, stills or frames that reflect the visual language of an Albanian history that was never consciously lived where she begins to incorporate erotic footage, blurring the line between the stills of communist propaganda in films, sex scenes, and healthy outdoor activities.Among his solo exhibitions: “Passion Pours, Passion Flows” Prometeo gallery, “Near and Elsewhere” double solo show with Regina Jose Galindo at Prometeo gallery, “Love as a glass of water” at Salzburger Kunstverein (Salzburg), “Eroticommunism” at Prometeo gallery (Milan), “Frames” at Villa Rondinelli, Archivio Porcinai (Fiesole) Where i feel there i am, Trart(Trieste). He has exhibited his works for several group exhibitions such as: “Danae revisited” Villa Brandolini (Treviso), “Italian Twist” Prisons Galleries(Treviso), “Synime” National Gallery of Kosovo and Albania, “Ti Bergamo ”GAMeC of Bergamo, “Art is community” San Patrignano Foundation Collection of Rimini, “What I see, new figuration in Italy” Mart of Trento and Rovereto, “Mediterranean Biennial” Galeria kombtare and arteve (Tirana), “Francesco Fabbri Prize” Villa Brandolini (Treviso), “Ex Gratia” Collezione Giuseppe Iannaccone (Milan), “BienNolo” (Milan), “La rivoluzione siamo noi” Autostrada Biennale (Prizren), “Heavenly creatures strategies of being an seing” Kunstalle west (Lana), “Libere tutte” Casa Testori (Milan), “Collezione San Patrignano” Palazzo Vecchio (Florence), “Passing” Prometeo gallery (Miami). She has participated in workshops in Venice (Forte Marghera), Bruges (Het Entrepot), Salzburg (Nata Wien), Shkoder (Arthouse) and Milan (Viafarini in residence).

Image: Iva Lulashi, It is invisible and you cannot smell it (2021; oil on canvas, 24 x 30 cm)

Iva Lulashi's free and desiring women are on display in Cinque Terre

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