1st Kiev International Biennial of Contemporary Art 2012.
25 concrete bunkers 25 industrial wax and one in neon, cm. 700 x 500 x 50
24.05.12 – 31.07.12
The Best of Times, The Worst of Times. Rebirth and Apocalypse in Contemporary Art, The First Kyiv International Biennale, Mystetskyi Arsenal, Kiev, Ukraine.
Curated by David Elliott.
Bunker Mentality/ Landscape Legacy
In her new work made especially for the Biennale, Albanian artist Anila Rubiku Aestheticizes the all-pervasive legacy of ex President Enver Hoxha’s system of national defence by making it into an installation. Symbols of resistance against a non-existent enemy, Bunker Mentality/ Landscape Legacy elaborates the paranoid form of the concrete bunker (about 750,000 ruins still litter the country) in a “Celebration” of the economic stagnation caused by the same mentality in which Albania is still mired. Dicult to demolish and expensive to remove, they have even become a kind of kitsch national emblem in the form of souvenirs and ash trays. In some cases they have actually been transformed into kiosks, store rooms, cafes, discos – even chapel. Yet in spite of their ostensible normalisation these structures still mask a largely unknown story of violence and sorrow.
David Elliott,
Page .56 e Best of Times, e Worst of Times. Rebirth and Apocalypse in Contemporary Art. 2012– The 1st Kyiv International Bien-nial of Contemporary Art. Arsenale 2012 – Mystetskyi Arsenal.