Gazmend Leka opens his personal exhibition, named “Noe”, at the FAB gallery, in Tirana during 11th-30th of November 2020. The exhibition consists of 24 works and is curated by Ermir Hoxha. This exhibition is the third part of a trilogy that has started and continued with the previous exhibitions: “Prayer” and “The Room of the Missing Steps”. It is this exhibition which in a way affirms or seems like an artistic reflection of the imbalance in the relationship: Creator-man-nature. What differs in this exhibition and that is noticeable compared to the other two cycles, is the human dimension, already so negligible in the face of the universe and the chaos that has engulfed our world. This cycle mostly highlights the reversal of human complacency regarding his own power and greatness.
Given the name, immediately, the mind wanders to the well-known biblical event: the flood in Noah’s time, as well as, the salvation carried out through Noah’s ark, thanks to the will of God. But the human drama is not just a single great one; man / humanity has been and is constantly confronted with the whims of nature and his inability to protect nature and to take advantage of it for his own benefit. And it is precisely this name that rises with hope and invigoration despite all the gloom overwhelming the exhibition. Noah is the one from whom the world will be reborn again, after the terrible storm.
The tendency towards the gloomy reflection in the exhibition is almost fully in line with what humanity is experiencing today, with the world pandemic; consequently, with the fear and insecurity of the human being for the future, caused precisely by this new almost apocalyptic phenomenon, although, the idea of the exhibition did not originate from the pandemic, it surely must have influenced it and was strongly pushed by it during its course until its execution. (Realization).
This exhibition has a mystical thread: it leads you to the contemplation that, in the face of powerful natural phenomena, and why not, even with the staggering political-social ones, man, very quickly, turns to superstitions; he forgets all his developmental ability and digs into the hidden corners of sin and right there, he tries to find the cause of the next disaster. And it’s undoubtedly true, every misfortune is seen as a natural selection of humans. The thought and instinct are there, in every tableau, but it is difficult to say what led to the great flood or the next flood: sinful thought or unbridled instinct? On the other hand, it is difficult to say what will prevail in the salvation of man, sound reason or the instinct of survival?
The floating in the immeasurable waters of the flood, significantly distributed in the gallery through the paintings, is a sign of equality (between human beings, but also between humans and animals) in a world that suffers from the desire for hierarchy, for the escalation of power to domination. And it is precisely this desire that has lead the inevitable flood.
In terms of the way it is created, Gazmend Leka’s exhibition, as an example of everyday life, transcends local borders, but, of course, his human and artistic pain comes from the place where he lives and works, from Albania. The exhibition is the acquisition of what has been emotionally experienced by him and has been layered in his memory to explode in such a moment of artistic presentation. Gazmend Leka’s artistic flood can be a reflection and a hidden desire for an upheaval: it is necessary to disperse all the chaos around for start life from scratch. Precisely for this reason arises the necessity for man (as the representative of reason on earth) must save the animal (the representative of instinct).
Gazmend Leka s trilogy is undoubtedly a human journey, the experience of which testifies a lot; The stubborn question arising is: is such evidence worthwhile to society, or will the veil of forgetfulness and carelessness do nothing but lead us to the next flood?
*Gazmend Leka was born on October 11th, 1953 in Tirana. He is an artist with long experience as a painter, graphic artist, illustrator, animated film director and painter and museum hall designer. In 1978 he completed his studies at the Academy of Arts and a year later began working as a collaborator on the design and realization of the interior of the museum “Gjergj Kastrioti – Skanderbeg” in Kruja, which he completed in 1982. For a period of 10 years (1981-1991) he becomes the artistic director of cartoon films at the “New Albania” (“Shqiperia e Re”) film studio working as their director. In 1991 he started working as a professor at the Academy of Arts, today the University of Arts (Professor of “Painting” and “Theory of Color”). Gazmend Leka has participated in 170 group exhibitions and has opened 20 solo exhibitions. The National Gallery of Art preserves 37 of his paintings and graphics. Over 400 other works have been distributed in private collections in: Albania, America, France, Switzerland, Italy, Turkey, Russia, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, Canada and Japan.
