The Sun Also Sets

---

Anila Rubiku
Solo exhibition The Sun Also Sets
Curated by Kari Conte and  text by Raino Isto.

January 31^st – 1^stof March 2025

ZETA Center for Contemporary Art, Tirana in collaboration with Istituto Italiano di Cultura

The Sun Also Sets is Anila Rubiku’s first solo exhibition in Albania. The exhibition features two distinct series of works: one reflecting on Albania, the land of her birth, and the other portraying Italy, the country she has called home for decades.

The first series is comprised of more than sixty drawings, etchings, and watercolors that reflect on impermanence, power, and the cyclical passage of time. Inspired by Percy Bysshe Shelley’s 1818 poem Ozymandias, Rubiku reflects on the hubris of rulers who attempt to immortalize their legacies in public spaces, only to see their grandeur erode with time. The exhibition’s title underscores that even though landscapes change, the sun will always rise and fall above them. These works document the transformation of Albania’s urban and rural landscapes, particularly in Tirana and Durres. Created between 2016 and 2018 and exhibited for the first time at ZETA, these works trace a century of corruption and shifting political powers through the statues, monuments, and architecture linked to the regimes of Enver Hoxha, Joseph Stalin, and Vladimir Lenin. Through rigorous archival research, Rubiku reconstructs the history of emblematic sites like Skanderbeg Square and Liria Square, shaped by Ottoman, Italian, and Soviet architectural influences. These places bear the imprints of Albania’s past, reflecting what has been preserved and erased. 

In The Sun Also Sets, Rubiku depicts the towering symbols of power once built to assert control, revealing how these structures are as transient as the regimes they symbolize. Her work focuses on these contested sites, where remnants of history and ideologies coexist—often uneasily—within the landscape. Today, these spaces are altered by modern development that frequently favors profit over the preservation of historical and archaeological heritage, further complicating these charged sites of memory.

The exhibition also includes three works from The Inner Door, a series of nearly a hundred embroideries created over the last four years. These works depict the abstract, vibrant doors of Milanese buildings that captured Rubiku’s attention during her wanderings in the city. In a collaborative process, the artist’s door photographs were meticulously translated into embroidery by craftswomen in Guri i Zi, Northern Albania.