august 05, 2021 - collezione giuseppe iannaccone

The Comune of Vernazza presents Iva Lulashi “Free and Yearning” - From an idea by Giuseppe Iannaccone

Realised with the contribution of Fondazione Carispezia and in collaboration with Prometeo Gallery by Ida Pisani, Milan-Lucca

Under the patronage of the Cinque Terre National Park

From 8^th August to 30^th September

Opens 7^th August 2021, 6 pm

Free admission (limited access)

Orario dei Disciplinati di Santa Caterina

Largo Taragia – Corniglia (SP)

The Comune of Vernazza is happy to present “Free and Yearning”, the solo show of Albanian artist Iva Lulashi (born in Tirana in 1988, now living and working in Milan), springing from an idea by Giuseppe Iannaccone cone, held at the Oratorio dei Disciplinati di Santa Caterina in Corniglia (SP), open to the public from the 8^th of August to the 30^th of September 2021.

For the first time, this exhibition will display the artist’s most recent paintings, realised throughout 2021. They are all original and inspired by Lulashi’s residence in Corniglia.

In the heart of this ancient Ligurian village, painting is set against an unconventional space and context, and it is put in conversation with the precious eighteenth-century architecture of the Oratorio dei Disciplinati and its modest yet pristine spiritual dimension, in close contact with the life that flows around and outside of it, in the streets and in the piazzas, and in the nature of the UNESCO site of Cinque Terre.

Realised thanks to the contribution of Fondazione Carispezia in the context of the 2021 Arts and Culture Open Tender, strongly wanted by the Comune of Vernazza, and stemming from an idea by lawyer and art collector Giuseppe Iannaccone, this show wishes to be the first of a series of initiatives and exhibition events to be realised in Cinque Terre “so that [we] can put the attention on these territories, not only for their great beauty, but also as lands of art”, as Vernazza’s Mayor Francesco Villa stated. Together with Iannaccone, he dreams new possibilities for the young Italian art in this context.

Giuseppe Iannaccone states: “This idea came to me after thinking of the great artists who have fallen in love with Cinque Terre in the past, first of whom are Renato Birolli and Alighiero Boetti, and finally Michelangelo Pistoletto, who applauded this initiative enthusiastically”.

In this occasion, one of Iva Lulashi’s works, which will be chosen by the citizens of Corniglia, will be donated to the community by the creator of the exhibition, Giuseppe Iannaccone: “What I would like to accomplish in Cinque Terre is to make it a reference point for recent Italian art, for it to be shown to the tourists who arrive here in the summer from all over the world”.

Iva Lulashi’s painting investigates the complexity of the collective dimension and of the individual experience by blending the boundaries between the political, the social, and the real. Starting from fragments of videos found in the uninterrupted flow of the Internet, Lulashi superimposes past memories and present imaginaries, and puts at the core of her quest the centrality of the body, of eroticism, and of the desire of determining existence.

After retracing the political past of her native country, Albania, which she only partially experienced, and by resorting to videos of the communist propaganda, used as a backbone for the works exhibited for the first time in 2018 in the collective show of Albanian artists organised in Giuseppe Iannaccone’s studio in Milan in collaboration with Adrian Paci, as well as in her first solo show at Prometeo Gallery in Milan, Lulashi’s artistic research is now concentrated on the power and seduction of erotic images.

With a declaredly feminine take on the topics, and by turning such aesthetic strategy into an ethical and political fight against the dominant cultural and visual stereotypes, the field of painting aims at subverting the control that power exerts on the lives of individuals.

The exhibition is complemented by a catalogue with essays by Giuseppe Iannaccone, Antonio Grulli, Cristina Masturzo, Rischa Paterlini, Carlo Sala, and Gloria Vergani.

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Iva Lulashi (1988) was born in Tirana, Albania. She now lives and works in Milan. In 2016, she graduated from the Fine Art Academy of Venice. Her artistic work stems from still photographs and frames that reflect the visual language of the Albanian history, which has not consciously been lived, and that are combined with erotic clips, thus blurring the boundaries between the alembics of the propaganda in the films, sex scenes, and healthy outdoor activities.

Among her solo exhibitions are “Passione cola, passione scorre” [Passion drips, passion flows] at Prometeo Gallery, “Vicino e altrove” [Nearby and elsewhere], double solo exhibition with Regina José Galindo at Prometeo Gallery, “Love as a Glass of Water” at Salzburger Kunstverein (Salzburg, Austria), “Eroticommunism” at Prometeo Gallery, “Frames” at Villa Rondinelli, Archivio Porcinai (Fiesole), and “Where I feel there I am” at TRART (Trieste).

Her works have been shown at various collective exhibitions such as: “Danae Rivisited” at Villa Brandolini (Treviso), ”Italian Twist” at Gallerie delle Prigioni (Treviso), “Synime” at the National Gallery of Kosovo and Albania, “Ti Bergamo” at GAMeC (Bergamo), “L’arte è comunità” [Art is Community] at Collezione Fondazione San Patrignano di Rimini, “Ciò che vedo, nuova figurazione in Italia” [What I See, New Figuration in Italy] at the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art of Trento and Rovereto, “Biennale Mediterranea” [Mediterranean Biennial] at Galeria Kombtare e Arteve (Tirana), “Premio Francesco Fabbri” [Francesco Fabbri Prize] at Villa Brandolini (Treviso), “Ex Gratia” at #collezionegiuseppeiannaccone (Milan), “BienNo-lo” (Milan), “La rivoluzione siamo noi” [We are the Revolution] at Autostrada Biennale (Prizren), “Heavenly creatures strategies of being and seeing” at Kunstalle west (Lana), “Libere tutte” [Free All] at Casa Testori (Milan), “Collezione San Patrignano” at Palazzo Vecchio (Florence), “Passing” at Prometeo Gallery (Miami). She also participated at various workshops in Venice (Forte Marghera), Bruges (Het Entrepot), Salzburg (Nata Wien), Shkoder (Arthou-se) and Milan (Viafarini in residence).

Upcoming shows: “Our other us”, Contemporary Art Biennial Encounters, curated by Kasia Redzisz and Mihnea Mircan, Timisoara, “United”, Cruce #arte y Pensamiento, Madrid.

The Comune of Vernazza wishes to thank:

Fondazione Carispezia

Giuseppe Iannaccone Collection

Prometeo Gallery by Ida Pisani, Milan-Lucca

Iva Lulashi

“Free and Yearning”

From 8^th August to 30^th September

Exhibition sponsored by the Comune of Vernazza

Born from an idea and curated by Giuseppe Iannaccone

A project realised with the contribution of Fondazione Carispezia in the context of the 2021 Arts and Culture Open Tender

In collaboration with Prometeo Gallery by Ida Pisani, Milan-Lucca

Under the patronage of the Cinque Terre National Park