FAB Gallery exhibits in its premises the previously unrevealed works of the late artist Arben Bajo. This solo exhibition of Bajo is entitled Mythodea and is curated by Ermir Hoxha and Ardian Kapo. The exhibition counts more than 20 works and will be open from October 13 to November 12, 2022.
Mythodea is a project extended in time, which was initially dedicated to the classical form of mythology, creating a series of works related to the ancient world, while in the last of his projects Bajo concentrated on the characters of Greek mythology. Lately, Bajo had built the whole concept of his creativity as a synthesis on himself, thus appearing in each of the mithology heroes. Bajo gave an unusual shape to these sculptures, transforming the mythical monsters into human bodies, making them more tangible, more alive under his form and image.
In the entrance of the gallery, Mythodea invites us in a mythological oasis with the presence of a nude woman’s finesse, facing the Fall of Pegasus which is laying vertically along the gallery’s central hall. The woman seems to be inviting us to the event, but at the same time she stands detached from it in her habitat, while Pegasus appears laying upside down, with its feet up and its wings flat on the floor. The monumental sculpture of the fall of Pegasus is accompanied with a red sculpture easel, which in this case appears more as a subject, far from its function as an object of work: behind it, words written by George Gordon Byron are printed on the wall (translated by Genti Gjikola), giving us the impression that the words are inviting us to the event.
The left space of the gallery introduces other mythical characters. Bajo chose to present the moment when Ulysses left the cave of Polyphemus, under the big ram that led the flock. The sculpture installed on the wall shows Ulysses transformed into the features of the artist himself, with the head of the stubborn ram protruding from his chest. In another sculpture, placed on a podium, the artist reappears unclothed and at the same time veiled as an ancient monster, while holding the horns in his hands, slightly towards his head, as a symbol of the royal crown. The subsequent work shows another monster that again Bajo realized with his own features. With horns on its head, the figure stands on their feet with pronounced plasticity, holding the body of a girl into its arms. The cast bronze sculpture symbolizes the creature locked inside of a labyrinth that preyed on young girls and boys.
While the space on the right invites us with Orpheus, the legendary character endowed with special musical abilities. Bajo exposed Orpheus sitting cross-legged on the stairs, frail and poised, with decorative plants shaped into a crown on his head and with a lyre in his hand, ready to release its sounds. The remaining part of the space is dedicated to smaller sculptures that were made earlier, cast in plaster and sometimes in bronze, where the figure of the bull and the horses seem to occupy most of the artist’s creations.
*Arben Bajo was born in 1967 in Gjirokastër. Bajo graduated in Sculpture at the Academy of Fine Arts in Tirana in 1992. He lived and worked in Athens until 2000, participating in many international exhibitions. Since 2006, Arben Bajo lived in Tirana and worked as a professor sculpture at the University of Arts, Tirana. Bajo has held several personal exhibitions in the country and abroad, among which: Sculpture, University of Arts, Tirana (2015); Portrait, University of the Arts (2011); Passion, Athens, Greece (2008); Lost Time, National Art Gallery, Tirana (2007); Myths and Faces, National Art Gallery, Tirana (2006); September, Athens, Greece (2005), also one of the first personal exhibitions realized in 1993 at the National Museum of Tirana. Bajo also made the statue of Father Zef Pellumbi, Asim Zeneli, Vaçe Zela in Lushnjë.
