The Center for Openness and Dialogue opened its artistic season with a solo exhibition of the artist Blerta Kambo, titled “Man of the Castle”. This exhibition will be open from January 13 to February 14, 2024.
Kambo’s exhibition features a series of photographs, various installations, and a sculpture. Through her art, Kambo explores the significance of manly symbols in our society and the consequences it embodies in the figure of women.
“Man of the Castle ” is a series of photographs, mainly based on the façades of buildings built by men in resemblances to castles. The imagery in almost all of the photographs has been digitally manipulated, transforming them into infrared light or, as otherwise known, imperceptible light to the human eye. Everything surrounding the castles takes on a pink hue (classified as a feminine color), as if to somewhat break the myth of masculine strength. This series of photographs and installations is divided into two sub-themes: Life/Death and Birth.
Life/Death
The photographs are exhibited throughout the COD hall, starting with a triptych at the main entrance. This photographic triptych repeats the same image: a tower in various dimensions, reminiscent of the tower of refuge. Kambo connects this to the blood feud, which, according to the Kanun, only affected men or boys, who had to self-isolate to escape death. On its side, a glass sculpture and a pink staircase are displayed. In this space more images of houses photographed in various locations in Albania are exhibited.
Birth
Continuing onto the small space on the right, there is an installation titled “next time hopefully a boy” (2023), a statement extracted from an old saying when a girl is born. The statement is produced on plexiglass with LED and is accompanied by several pink aluminum curtains, concluding with another installation featuring the word “a man-woman” (2023). According to the artist, these installations carry the pink color as a stereotypical representation of femininity.
In the corridor on the left side of the space, two additional expressions are installed on plexiglass with LED: “crime of passion” (2023), a phrase used by the media for cases of femicide, and “a girl for the house” (2023), describing the ‘good girl’ who performs household chores, marries, or a virgin (from the titles of the artist’s works).
Blerta Kambo (born in 1985) is an Albanian photographer and visual artist. Her personal projects follow a conceptual approach, addressing them such as archives, multiple truths/fictions, ecofeminism, fragile masculinity, space as a feeling, and architecture embedded in space-as a narrative within its social context.
In 2023, Blerta was a finalist for the Circa Contemporary Art Prize, London, UK.
