On Intuition, Memory, and Becoming

The artist and Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama works at the intersection of artistic production and political activity. His drawings—created during meetings and negotiations—translate attention into visual form.

Recent sculptures expand this process by reworking drawings into three-dimensional structures and proposing a multi-layered understanding of temporality. Against the backdrop of and parallel to Albania’s post-communist transition, Rama developed a relationship with the artist Anri Sala.

This conversation, moderated by political scientist and art critic Natalia Gierowska, explores Rama’s expanded practice in the context of his longstanding dialogue with Sala.

Join the artists as they discuss their shared interest in perception, the limits of language, the role of form in shaping collective experience, and, most importantly, how artistic ways of thinking can remain effective in contemporary political practice.

Edi Rama (born 1964 in Tirana) lives and works in Tirana. He studied painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Tirana, where he later also taught as a professor. After several years as an artist in Paris, he returned to Albania in 1998 to serve as Minister of Culture and has been Prime Minister since 2013.

His first solo exhibition, “Chrysalizing,” at Galerie Société opens at the end of April during Gallery Weekend Berlin.

His most recent solo exhibitions include “Edi Rama” at the Marian Goodman Gallery, Paris (2024); “Improvisations” at the Zappeion, Athens (2023); and “Work,” which traveled from the Kunsthalle Rostock (2018) to the Nevada Museum of Art, Reno (2019). Previous presentations of his work have taken place at the New Museum, New York (2016) and the Venice Biennale (2017, 2003); the Centre Pompidou, Paris (2010); the Haus der Kunst, Munich (2004); and the São Paulo Biennial (1994).

Anri Sala (born 1974 in Tirana) creates transformative, time-based works through the multifaceted relationships between image, architecture, and sound. His works explore ruptures in language, syntax, and music and invite creative shifts that generate new interpretations of history and replace old fictions and narratives with less explicit, more nuanced dialogues. His works have been the subject of solo exhibitions at the Bourse de Commerce, Paris (2023); the Kunsthaus Bregenz (2021); the Buffalo Bayou Park Cistern, Houston (2021); the Centro Botìn, Santander (2019); the Mudam, Luxembourg (2019); the Castello di Rivoli Museo d’Arte

Contemporanea, Turin (2019); Museo Tamayo, Mexico City (2017); the New Museum,

New York (2016); Haus der Kunst, Munich (2014); Centre Pompidou, Paris (2012);

Serpentine Gallery, London (2011); Museum of Contemporary Art North Miami (2008);

and ARC, Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris (2004).

He has also participated in major international group exhibitions and biennials, including the 57th Venice Biennale (2017), dOCUMENTA (13) (2012), the 29th São Paulo Biennial (2010), and the 4th Berlin Biennale (2006). In 2013, he represented France at the 55th Venice Biennale.

Natalia Gierowska is a political scientist and art critic working at the intersection of politics and visual culture. Her academic research focuses on European harmonization processes as well as broader issues of governance and displacement. She has published in academic journals, including Springer, and authored book chapters on migration policy and refugee law, particularly with regard to the Middle East.

Previously, she worked in political lobbying, academia, and the diplomatic service—experiences that shape her interdisciplinary approach to art criticism. She is a freelance editor at The Brooklyn Rail and, together with others, heads the Stefan Gierowski Foundation in Warsaw, where she drives its cultural and educational programs.

#GALLERYWEEKENDBERLIN

IN ENGLISH