FOREWORD

2(007) Pranvere is the third exhibition at The National Gallery of Arts, Tirana to carry the title Pranvere (which translates in English to Spring). The previous exhibitions, one in the 70s, and one in the 90s, marked significant points within the contemporary his- tory of Albania. Each exhibition was controversially pitched against a circumstance of specific social and political event, and each looked forward, beyond these immediate parameters.

Against such a background this exhibition, the first to carry this title in the new Century, attempts to disclose a silent sentiment of social and political relevance, constructing points of shared agenda between artists operating both from within and beyond Alba- nia’s borders. The curatorial agenda of the exhibition seeks to establish, above prescribed notions of cultural placement, a rationale of international conversation.

The works in this exhibition unpick the edges of the everyday fictions that inform social agendas of class, behaviour, fairytale and anxiety. Uncovering shared mythologies the participating artists, from Albania, Peru, the UK, USA and Italy, reveal narrative strands that feed into a collective language and shared consciousness. A consciousness fostered and fuelled by the social conditioning of environment, literature, aspiration and televi- sion. The works in 2(007) Pranvere pick at the margins of social exchange, proposition- ing not simply the points at which issues cross, but moreover the points at which they bleed back into the fabric of society, into experiences relevant to daily encounter.

Adopting multiple mediums, these artists disclose the potentials that exist within the unstable landscape of contemporary practice, each drawing resource from that which is to hand, and each producing work that is both sympathetic to, and reaches beyond, their country of residence.