On Intuition, Memory, and Becoming

An Artist Talk with Edi Rama and Anri Sala

On Intuition, Memory, and Becoming: An Artist Talk with Edi Rama and Anri Sala
In conversation with Natalia Gierowska
3:30 pm
 
An artist and Prime Minister of Albania, Edi Rama works at the intersection of artistic production and political activity. His drawings—produced during meetings and negotiations—translate attention into visual form. More recent sculptural works extend this process, reworking drawings into three-dimensional structures and proposing a multifaceted understanding of temporality. Against the backdrop of and parallel to Albania’s post-Communism transition, Rama developed a relationship with artist Anri Sala.
This conversation, moderated by political scientist and art critic Natalia Gierowska, examines Rama’s expanded practice through his long-standing dialogue with Sala. Join the artists as they discuss their shared interest in perception, the limits of language, the role of form in shaping collective experience, and, importantly, how artistic modes of thinking can remain operative within contemporary political practice.

Edi Rama (b. 1964, Tirana) lives and works in Tirana. He trained as a painter at the Academy of Fine Arts in Tirana, where he later taught as a professor. After several years working as an artist in Paris, he returned to Albania in 1998 to serve as Minister of Culture and has been Prime Minister since 2013. His first solo exhibition, “Chrysalizing,” at Société opens in late April on the occasion of Gallery Weekend Berlin. Recent solo exhibitions include “Edi Rama,” Marian Goodman Gallery, Paris (2024); “Improvisations,” Zappeion, Athens (2023); and “Work,” which traveled from Kunsthalle Rostock, Germany (2018) to the Nevada Museum of Art, Reno (2019). Earlier presentations of his work have been held at the New Museum, New York (2016); the Venice Biennale (2017, 2003); Centre Pompidou, Paris (2010); Haus der Kunst, Munich (2004); and the São Paulo Biennial (1994).
Anri Sala (b. 1974, Tirana) constructs transformative, time-based works through multiple relationships between image, architecture, and sound. His works investigate ruptures in language, syntax, and music, inviting creative dislocations, which generate new interpretations of history, supplanting old fictions and narratives with less-explicit, more-nuanced dialogues. His work has been the subject of solo exhibitions at Bourse de Commerce, Paris (2023); Kunsthaus Bregenz (2021); Buffalo Bayou Park Cistern, Houston (2021); Centro Botìn, Santander (2019); Mudam, Luxembourg (2019); the Castello di Rivoli Museo d’Arte
Contemporanea, Turin (2019); Museo Tamayo, Mexico City (2017); the New Museum,
New York (2016); Haus der Kunst, Munich (2014); Centre Pompidou, Paris (2012);
Serpentine Gallery, London (2011); Museum of Contemporary Art North Miami (2008);
and ARC, Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris (2004). He has also participated in
major group exhibitions and biennials internationally, including the 57th Venice Biennale (2017), dOCUMENTA (13) (2012), the 29th São Paulo Biennial (2010) and the 4th Berlin Biennale (2006). In 2013, he represented France in the 55th Venice Biennale.
Natalia Gierowska is a political scientist and art critic working at the intersection of politics and visual culture. Her academic research focuses on European harmonisation processes as well as broader questions of governance and displacement. She has published in academic journals including Springer and contributed book chapters on migration policy and refugee law, particularly in relation to the Middle East. She previously worked in political lobbying, academia, and diplomacy, experiences that inform her interdisciplinary approach to art criticism. She is Editor-at-Large at The Brooklyn Rail and co-leads the Stefan Gierowski Foundation in Warsaw, advancing its cultural and educational programmes.

Price info: plus admission

Next date:

• Date Saturday, 02/May/2026 15:30 bis 16:30
• Venue Neue Nationalgalerie
• Address Potsdamer Straße 50, 10785 Berlin-Tiergarten