ANRI SALA
The Albanian artist Anri Sala makes films that often seem to about very little. In Uomoduomo (2001), for example, an old man falls asleep in a church, while in Dammi i Colori (2003) an impoverished city is visited with the city's Mayor who executed the repainting of its façades, and in Lakkat (2004) two children in an enclosed space recite words in the African language Wolof. These descriptions cannot begin to capture the quiet intensity of Sala's image-making, the often disquieting and apparition-like quality of the work. His films reveal a dimly lit world that is both fascinating and strange, inviting many layers of different readings.
In time after time (Tirana, 2003), a single, fixed shot reveals an old, half-starved horse standing in profile, almost completely immobilized on the edge of a busy thoroughfare. The camera and thus the viewer seems perilously close to the cars and trucks that speed past, blocking the view of the horse. Urban buildings and city lights dot the night sky, coming slowly in and out of focus. The horse whinnies as the cars pass, and once, it slowly lifts its leg. Some moments transpire before one fully grasps what one is seeing in this film, since it seems so bizarre and implausible. However, before long, questions flash into one's head as quickly as the cars pass by: what invisible force keeps the horse there, and how did it get there in the first place? Will it ever be able to escape? Once one realizes that Time after time is a truthful document, however strange and unbelievable, anguish begins to set in. Time crawls by, and one's sense of reality becomes lost in that ambiguous, unidentifiable zone on a highway near a place without a name.
http://www.the-artists.org/ArtistView.cfm?id=7FC521F5-4F6B-4D2B-BC9F7CE23CE38DEC
http://www.postmedia.net/02/salaanri.htm
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/collective/A2825543
http://www.cca-kitakyushu.org/english/project/sala_project.shtml
http://www.artfacts.net/index.php/pageType/exhibitioninfo/exhibition/8357
http://www.artic.edu/aic/exhibitions/sala.html
http://amsterdam.nettime.org/Lists-Archives/nettime-T-0104/msg00157.html
http://www.crousel.com/sala/bio-as.html
http://www.delfina.org.uk/exh/img_sala.html
http://www.paris-art.com/modules-modload-interviews-travail-1258.html
http://china.sina.com.tw/cul/s/2001-08-21/2693.html
Born 1974 in Tirana, Albania
Lives and works in Paris, France
time after time , 2003
Video projection, sound, video transferred to DVD, 5'30"
Courtesy Anri Sala and Hauser & Wirth, Zurich and London
Video projection, sound, video transferred to DVD, 5'30"
Courtesy Anri Sala and Hauser & Wirth, Zurich and London
The Albanian artist Anri Sala makes films that often seem to about very little. In Uomoduomo (2001), for example, an old man falls asleep in a church, while in Dammi i Colori (2003) an impoverished city is visited with the city's Mayor who executed the repainting of its façades, and in Lakkat (2004) two children in an enclosed space recite words in the African language Wolof. These descriptions cannot begin to capture the quiet intensity of Sala's image-making, the often disquieting and apparition-like quality of the work. His films reveal a dimly lit world that is both fascinating and strange, inviting many layers of different readings.
In time after time (Tirana, 2003), a single, fixed shot reveals an old, half-starved horse standing in profile, almost completely immobilized on the edge of a busy thoroughfare. The camera and thus the viewer seems perilously close to the cars and trucks that speed past, blocking the view of the horse. Urban buildings and city lights dot the night sky, coming slowly in and out of focus. The horse whinnies as the cars pass, and once, it slowly lifts its leg. Some moments transpire before one fully grasps what one is seeing in this film, since it seems so bizarre and implausible. However, before long, questions flash into one's head as quickly as the cars pass by: what invisible force keeps the horse there, and how did it get there in the first place? Will it ever be able to escape? Once one realizes that Time after time is a truthful document, however strange and unbelievable, anguish begins to set in. Time crawls by, and one's sense of reality becomes lost in that ambiguous, unidentifiable zone on a highway near a place without a name.
http://www.the-artists.org/ArtistView.cfm?id=7FC521F5-4F6B-4D2B-BC9F7CE23CE38DEC
http://www.postmedia.net/02/salaanri.htm
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/collective/A2825543
http://www.cca-kitakyushu.org/english/project/sala_project.shtml
http://www.artfacts.net/index.php/pageType/exhibitioninfo/exhibition/8357
http://www.artic.edu/aic/exhibitions/sala.html
http://amsterdam.nettime.org/Lists-Archives/nettime-T-0104/msg00157.html
http://www.crousel.com/sala/bio-as.html
http://www.delfina.org.uk/exh/img_sala.html
http://www.paris-art.com/modules-modload-interviews-travail-1258.html
http://china.sina.com.tw/cul/s/2001-08-21/2693.html