biography

Edi Hila was born in Shkodër, Albania, in 1944. He lives and works in Tirana, Albania.

As an important figure of the Balkan art scene, Edi Hila has borne witness to the Social and political history of Albania. Through his life experience, sensitivity and painting he reached peaks of great poignancy. In spite of the intellectual isolation caused by the regime of Enver Hoxha, he attended the National Academy of Art in Tirana and managed to gain extensive knowledge of the art of XX century. After his artistic debut, during the seventies and eighties, he was forced by the regime to work in a government-run poultry processing factory as part of a reformation program. Only in the nineties - after the fall of communism in Albania – he returned to painting; defining the style and contents that still today distinguish his research. In his practice, time – historical and personal, photographic and pictorial – encounters space – exhibiting and personal, geographical and political. Hila’s creative process is comprised of multiple sessions over which the artist reworks details, parts of the composition, layering, passages. Each of his works becomes a “pictorial palimpsest” embracing, in a formal and chromatic synthesis, various stages of his life that led him to create a specific work.

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Edi Hila was born in Shkodër, Albania, in 1944. He lives and works in Tirana, Albania.

As an important figure of the Balkan art scene, Edi Hila has borne witness to the Social and political history of Albania. Through his life experience, sensitivity and painting he reached peaks of great poignancy. In spite of the intellectual isolation caused by the regime of Enver Hoxha, he attended the National Academy of Art in Tirana and managed to gain extensive knowledge of the art of XX century. After his artistic debut, during the seventies and eighties, he was forced by the regime to work in a government-run poultry processing factory as part of a reformation program. Only in the nineties - after the fall of communism in Albania – he returned to painting; defining the style and contents that still today distinguish his research. In his practice, time – historical and personal, photographic and pictorial – encounters space – exhibiting and personal, geographical and political. Hila’s creative process is comprised of multiple sessions over which the artist reworks details, parts of the composition, layering, passages. Each of his works becomes a “pictorial palimpsest” embracing, in a formal and chromatic synthesis, various stages of his life that led him to create a specific work.

He has held teaching positions at the Fine Art Academy in Tirana for several decades since 1988. Hila received the Onufri Award in 1993 and 1998; in 2019 he was awarded the DAAD Artists-in-Berlin Program fellowship.

Recent solo shows include Territore te pervojave te jetuara, Center for Openness and Dialogue, Tirana (2023); The Sound of the Tuba, Secession, Vienna (2020); Edi Hila: Painter of Transformation, which originated at the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw and travelled to the National Gallery of Arts, Tirana (2018); and Mirages of a Boulevard, Center of Openness and Dialogue, Tirana (2016).

The artist has participated in a number of international exhibitions including: Life, without buildings, gta Exhibitions, ETH Zurich, Zurich (2022); Learning from Athens, documenta 14, Kassel, Germany, and Athens, Greece (2017); Potential Monuments of Unrealised Futures (with Adrian Paci), Architectural Association, London, travelled to Albanian Pavillion at the 14th International Architecture Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia, Venice, Italy (2014); The Desire for Freedom, Art in Europe from 1945 to the present day, Historical Museum, Berlin; travelled to Palazzo Reale, Milan, Italy and Kumu Art Museum, Tallinn (2013); Touched, Liverpool Biennial, Liverpool, UK (2010); Blood and Honey – The Future’s Balkan, Essl Museum, Vienna (2003); After the Wall. Art and Culture in Post-Communist Europe, Moderna Museet, Stockholm (1999); travelled to Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin and Museum für Gegenwart, Berlin, and Ludwig Museum, Budapest (2000); and the Albanian Pavillion at the 48th International Art Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia, Venice, Italy (1999).

His work is represented in collections of museums such as: Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw; Musée national d’art moderne Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; Fonds municipal d’art contemporain de la Ville de Paris; FRAC Pays de la Loire, France; FRAC Auvergne, France, and the National Gallery of Arts, Tirana.

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images

People of the Future, 1997

Acrylic on canvas

Triptych; 200 × 170 cm each

Photo: Lorenzo Palmieri

Riflessione sulla mostra, 2021

Oil on canvas

103,7 × 87,6 cm

Photo: Lorenzo Palmieri

Un momento da ricordare, 2021

Oil on canvas

112,5 × 122,8 cm

Photo: Lorenzo Palmieri

Periferia

Monument, 2005

Oil on canvas

89 × 135 cm

Périphérie 2, 2011

Oil on canvas

103 × 137 cm

House in Korça

Lampshade Outside the House, 2020

Oil on canvas

105 × 147 cm

In the Basement, 2019

Oil on canvas

107 × 154 cm

Morning, 2019

Oil on canvas

103 × 176 cm

public exhibitions

Center for Openness and Dialogue

Tirana

Territore te pervojave te jetuara

14.7 – 10.8.2023

Courtesy Center for Openness and Dialogue

Monopoli, Italy

Panorama

1.9 – 4.9.2022

Photo credit: Cosmo Laera

gta exhibitions at ETH Zurich

Zurich

Life Without Buildings

16.4 – 20.5.2022

Photo credit: Nelly Rodriguez

Secession

Vienna

Edi Hila: The Sound of the Tuba

18.8.2020 – 7.2.2021

Photo: Oliver Ottenschläger

Secession

Vienna

Edi Hila: The Sound of the Tuba

18.8.2020 – 7.2.2021

Photo: Oliver Ottenschläger

National Gallery of Arts

Tirana, Albania

Edi Hila: Painter of Transformation

24.5 – 29.7.2018

National Gallery of Arts

Tirana, Albania

Edi Hila: Painter of Transformation

24.5 – 29.7.2018

Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw

Warsaw, Poland

Edi Hila: Painter of Transformation

2.3 – 6.5.2018

Photo: Daniel Chrobak

Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw

Warsaw, Poland

Edi Hila: Painter of Transformation

2.3 – 6.5.2018

Photo: Daniel Chrobak

press

Edi Hila - Al di là del vetro review

Veronica Santi

Artforum

April 2022

Edi Hila: To Paint in the Eye of a Storm

Dorota Michalska

ARTMargins

May 25, 2019

Routine of the Real

Dieter Roelstraete

Artforum

April 2019

Edi Hila: the Albanian Painter of Postwar Communism and its Aftermath

Amy Zion

Frieze

September 17, 2018

publications

Edi Hila

Erzen Shkololli, Joanna Mytkowska, Éric de Chassey (Eds.); texts by Éric de Chassey, Edi Hila, Edi Muka, Joanna Mytkowska, Kathrin Rhomberg, Erzen Shkololli, Adam Szymczyk

Kontakt Collection, Vienna; Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw; National Gallery of Arts, Tirana

Sternberg Press, London

2021

Maquettes

Edi Hila

Published on the occasion of the exhibition Edi Hila – The Sound of the Tuba, Secession, Vienna, 2020

Revolver Publishing, Berlin

2020

Edi Hila: Painter of Transformation

Éric de Chassey, Joanna Mytkowska, Kathrin Rhomberg, and Erzen Shkololli

Buchhandlung Walther König, Cologne

2018

video


Edi Hila in conversation with Edi Muka

2020

Exhibition talk on September 15, 2020, as a part of the exhibition Edi Hila. The Sound of the Tuba, Secession Vienna, September 18 – November 8, 2020. Organized by the Friends of the Secession Vienna.


"The Sound of the Tuba" - Exhibition Tour by Edi Hila.

2020

Online guided tour through the exhibition by Edi Hila. The Sound of the Tuba with curator Bettina Spörr at Vienna Secession. In cooperation with Vienna Art Week

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