Oltre l’Adriatico La partecipazione albanese all’Esposizione Internazionale d’Arte di Venezia

Albania joined the International Art Exhibition in Venice only in 2005, twenty years later the collapse of the communist dictatorship of Enver Hoxha. The building of a democratic state had consequences also on the expressive research of several artists who had to face a substantial change of their working environment. At the beginning of XXI century the artistic and cultural heritage of Socialist Realism was still the only relevant cultural reference for the construction of a new Albanian cultural identity. Reflecting on the troubled past of the their nation the new generation of artists focused their research on a intimate and personal elaboration concerned the current improvement of the Albanian society. The purpose of this essay is to illustrate the role that the Venice Biennale has been in the realization of the new Albanian artistic scene as landmark for the European and international contemporary cultural tendencies. All the exhibition settled in the Albanian Pavillion since 2005 reveal the different approaches to the national past and to the new cultural identity of the artist that have represented the Balkan country at the Venice Biennale during the last fifteen years.