[spectre] (fwd) Manifesto DESERTION, ZETA Contemporary Art Center (Tirana)

[Andreas Broeckmann]

Betreff: ZETA Contemporary Art Center presents Manifesto DESERTION
Datum: 	Mon, 03 Jul 2023 06:01:21 +0000
Von: 	e-flux Agenda <art-agenda at mailer.e-flux.com>


Manifesto DESERTION
a project by DebatikCenter of Contemporary Art
July 4–September 11, 2023

ZETA Contemporary Art Center
Abdyl Frashëri Street, Nd.8, H.7, Ap.4 (2nd floor)
Hekla Center
1019 Tirana
Albania

https://qendrazeta.com

Manifesto DESERTION urgently attests to the interconnection of art and 
politics, as evident in states and climates of emergency.

ZETA Contemporary Art Center is pleased to present *Manifesto 
DESERTION*, a project by DebatikCenter of Contemporary Art (DCCA). The 
project follows Manifesto HIJACKING from 2022, which explored art’s 
ability to archive traces of anti-colonial resistance discourses in 
Southeastern Europe. Manifesto DESERTION looks at the flipside of 
resistance: the abandonment of power as well as, potentially, 
contemporary art. It brings together artists, filmmakers, curators, 
academics, historians, architects, activists, and publishers to 
collaboratively examine attitudes and acts of desertion.

Manifesto DESERTION begins on July 4, with *Find Your Tongue*, a 
happening about a whistleblower who exposed collusion between 
politicians and organized crime.

It continues with *Radio Desertion*, a 60 minute sound installation 
consisting of voice recordings by poets, artists, philosophers, and 
curators reflecting on two interrelated questions: How can strategies of 
desertion be used today to disrupt contemporary forms of cultural and 
political hegemony? And what does it mean to desert history itself?

Radio Desertion is followed by *EDEN EDEN EDEN*, an exhibition developed 
in three chapters, which expand from the center of Tirana towards the 
margins and vice versa, proposing tools for the construction of a 
“Desertion Archive”.

/EDEN 1: *The Deserter*/, restored by Sonja Lau: A specially 
commissioned reproduction of Ilya Repin’s famous painting /The Deserter 
/(1917) by the artist Zef Shoshi (b. 1939), sets the ground for a chain 
of reflections on absences and presences, originals and copies, 
anachronisms and speculative histories, as a means of considering the 
desertion of art history as a symptomatic condition of the region.

/EDEN 2: *Moving Billboard*/, agitated by La Société Spectrale (Armando 
Lulaj, Jonida Gashi, Pleurad Xhafa): The sudden appearance of 24 
billboards in unexpected locations across Tirana for one-hour intervals 
over the course of a single day, forms the basis for exploring the 
possibility of deserting established models of exhibition making. La 
Société Spectrale has invited 12 artists to contribute two works each, 
one of their own and another by a deceased artist, whose practice has 
been important to them and whose work still speaks to the present moment 
or the imminent future.

/EDEN 3: *Lighting a Fire on the Bottom of the Ocean*/, conjured by 
Vincent W.J. van Gerven Oei & Çiçek İlengiz: Against the background of 
the ineffectiveness of political action and within the deserted Albanian 
landscape of ideas, this project seeks to activate the nature of the as 
yet unrealized forest surrounding the city of Tirana by different, 
magical means.

Manifesto DESERTION continues with *Surveillance*, a project that 
investigates the spread of Albanian data leaks and the abandonment of 
state structures, and concludes with *Enaction*, a historical 
re-enactment that includes the use of original audio recordings from the 
Albanian 1997 uprising.

Manifesto DESERTION also announces the publication of the third volume 
in the series *“Biblioteka Art & Politikë”*, an edited collection by 
Raino Isto, on the legacies of socialist realism as a global method.

*Program*

*/Find Your Tongue/:* July 4, 7–9pm, happening. The collusion between 
politics and crime.
ZETA Contemporary Art Center, Abdyl Frashëri Str. Nd.8, H.7, Ap. 4 (2nd 
floor), Hekla Center, Tirana, Albania

*/The Deserter/:* July 13, 7–8pm, guided tour. Ilya Repin's painting 
/The Deserter/ (1917), repainted by Zef Shoshi (2023).
Location to be announced.

*/Moving Billboard 2/:* July 31, 1–12am, apparitions. 24 billboards all 
over Tirana in the course of a single day.
Periphery of the City of Tirana, Albania

*/Lighting a Fire/:* August 26, 8am–11pm, ritual. The inauguration of 
the first political exorcism in Albania.
Orbital Forest of the City of Tirana, Albania

*/Surveillance/:* September 6, 7–9pm, hacktivinstallation. The spread of 
data leaks and the abandonment of state structures.
ZETA Contemporary Art Center, Abdyl Frashëri Str. Nd.8, H.7, Ap.4 (2nd 
floor), Hekla Center, Tirana, Albania

*/Enaction/:* September 11, 7–11pm, re-enactment. Historic original 
audio recordings from the 1997 Albanian uprising.
ZETA Contemporary Art Center, Abdyl Frashëri Str. Nd.8, H.7, Ap.4 (2nd 
floor), Hekla Center, Tirana, Albania

*/Tracking Shot/:* November 29, 1am–12pm, act. One-act movement in front 
of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, USA.
5th Ave, New York, NY 10128, USA

*Conceived by:* Boris Budini, Jonida Gashi, Vincent W.J. van Gerven Oei, 
Raino Isto, Jora Kasapi, Ataol Kaso, Valentina Koça, Sonja Lau, Armando 
Lulaj, Ylber Marku, Marco Mazzi, Redon Skikuli and Pleurad Xhafa.

*Contributions by:* Tatiana Bazzichelli, Franco ‘Bifo’ Berardi, Simon 
Critchley, Arben Dedja, Liu Ding & Carol Yinghua Lu, Yi Gu, Srećko 
Horvat, Vladan Jeremic & Rena Rädle, Jin Jun, Elpida Karaba & Despina 
Zefkili, Thomas Logoreci, Michael Marder, Luca Martignani, Théodore 
Mclauchlin, Viktor Misiano, Stuart Munro, Hadas Pe’ery, Nina Power, Theo 
Prodromidis, Marco Scotini, Ares Shporta, Jonas Staal, Mark A. Weitz.

*Works by:* Issam Badr, Zef Bumçi, Giovanni De Donà & Gianluca Ghini, 
The Question of Funding, Deniz Gezmiş, Barbad Golshiri, Martin Johnson 
Heade, Alban Hajdinaj, Theodore John Kaczynski, David Kampi, Osamu 
Kanemura, Edward Kienholz, Tong Lam, Chris Marker, Marco Mazzi, Pınar 
Öğrenci, Kioumars Pourahmad, Walid Raad, Sara Rahbar, Ketty La Rocca, 
Christoph Schlingensief, Alessandro Scotti, Zef Shoshi & Ilya Repin, La 
Société Spectrale, Dziga Vertov, Ian Wilson, Pleurad Xhafa.

Display for “Desertion Archives” designed by Armando Lulaj.

Manifesto DESERTION was supported by: Foundation for Art Initiatives, 
Goethe-Zentrum Tirana. Co-funded by EU.