Valentina Bonizzi brings her personal exhibition “The Transitory State of Possible Stories”, curated by Luisa Perlo, at the Zeta Gallery in Tirana (28th of February – 22nd March 2019). The law and the way it acts (or not) to serve the society. This is the main theme of the exhibition, which is brought to life through the video installation. Is the law open? Is it open to everyone? First of all do people know they need and can access law? If they should and they cannot, do they know they have to create their own opportunities? For all these questions, strong support for the artist Bonizzi are the words by writer Franc Kafka, taken from his novel “The Process”. The views of the Prime Minister’s Office Building (as a sign of power) are good illustrative plans for Kafka’s thoughts or vice versa.
Analysing his references (Kafka’s) points out man’s inability, failure to build a righteous world for himself. Of course, the difficulties created by him (the man) must be booted out by him too, but that cannot happen as long as he (the man) fears the warning more than the luring invitations to enter law, despite the probable prohibition from his akin. The presence of the guard is striking, because the law itself is a guardian. In this closed game for two where the guards the law and the law guards man, the so-called lower society levels are the ones who should think about avoiding the formation of stairs, thus, the powerful guards and of the omnipotent ones.
The main work (Homage to Kafka), in its content, as well as the place it occupies in the exhibition space, comes complete through the screen at the centre of the gallery and the (shorthand) writing around the screen through a fabric. The presence of the hymn on the video indicates the national feature, while the words used indicate the international feel to it by expanding the dimension: all this does not speak to the society of a single dimension, but to man of all time. The shorthand of Kafka’s writing by the employee, completely unreadable to the naked eye, proves that what we see / hear is understandable if we have the will and determination to decode it.
The other Kafkaesque irony is the passive persistence that raises the question: How much time does a society waste without knowing how to improve itself? And furthermore, can this be learned (desire for improvement)? A kind of nebula wanders in words, as well as in the footage within the video. Everything, in the image and sound, flows smoothly, as seen from the eyes of an immortal (like a guard) while plans from the entrance of the Prime Minister’s building continue to present continuous cleaning. Eternal guard and the mortal peasant; from time to time, the steno-graph into action. Shrunk down to nothing, this video, overall, proves how man thrives in passivity, in general.
The “Their Kanun” and the “Law” are the other two works included in the exhibition, which examine the force of law, first in the social mind set and then in action for the sake of social interaction throughout everyday life. With regard to this part, the curatorial text states: “But what happens when a forum is placed at the margins of society, on the periphery? Does it produce knowledge? From these reflections Forumi I Atyre develops, in collaboration with the activists group ATA, whom in Kamza have created a devise for cultural discussion and resistance. The video installation is the result of a quest of the city as a normative system, crossed by written and non-written rules, social and patriarchal customs, practised in the urban territory of Kamez during a cycle of laboratories and actions shared with ATA and groups of young people and other artists and activists.
In the exhibition, the two narrations, the central and the peripheral, become complementary: the system of power in which we live is included in the written word and its oral transmission, the permanent and the temporary, what appears concrete and the series of fluid stories inhabiting individuals and communities. The space between these meanings is the place where the artistic work places its poetic potential, or the possible one, which is about our relation with the law and its narration.
