Genti Korini

Spider’s Envy
2022, film, 21 min.

In the film Spider’s Envy, Genti Korini explores the relationship between aesthetics and social imagination, examining how these elements manifest themselves in the juxtaposition of modernity with the cultural and historical framework of his native country, Albania. The artist and the critic circle around each other in a labyrinth of a modernist ruin. Set in a convoluted exploration of modernism, somewhat resonating with today’s polemics, these two adversaries pit realism against abstraction and the concept of the socialist “new man” against his bourgeois degenerate counterpart. The result is a fascinating dialogue based on the texts of Albanian art historian Alfred Uçi and a secret service document condemning the artist for his aesthetics, accompanied by almost iconic images of decaying modernist architecture.

Genti Korini was born in 1979 in Albania and studied at the University of Art and Design in Cluj, Romania. He graduated from the University of Arts in Tirana, Albania, in 2003. His work encompasses painting, sculpture, photography, and video, and is influenced by post-communism and neoliberal ideology, focusing on conceptual, political, and social impacts. His work was showcased at the 14th Manifesta in Pristina.

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Alina Bliumis

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Alina Bliumis (b. Minsk, Belarus) is New York-based artist who received her BFA from the School of Visual Art in 1999 and a diploma from the Advanced Course in Visual Arts in Fondazione Antonio Ratti, Como, Italy in 2005. Her works are in various private and public collections, including MAC VAL, France; Musée national de l’histoire de l’immigration, Paris; The Victoria and Albert Museum, London; Moscow Museum of Modern Art, Russia; Bat Yam Museum for Contemporary Art, Israel; The Saatchi Collection, UK; The Harvard Business School, USA; The National Museum of American Jewish History, Philadelphia; and Missoni Collection, Italy.


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