FANI ZGURO
BROKEN THREADS
Broken Threads, 2007, single channel video with audio, 7’05”
Fani Zguro’s “Broken Threads” (2007) juxtaposes black and white shots from an Albanian spy movie with the dark tune of a murder ballad by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds.
In the film – “Fijet që Priten” (1973), which also translates as broken threads – foreign agents and their local infiltrators conspire to destabilize the new Albanian society and undermine its achievements on the socialist path.
Assembling all the scenes in the film depicting the foreign agents, Zguro produces a collage of hip looks and Western airs, fur coats and dark shades, incarnating what was then publicly demonized, but privately longed for. Wedded to the dark voice of Nick Cave, the sequel evokes a recollection of hushed penchants and covert desires. Naturally, Cave’s demeanor bolsters the villains’ badass aura.
In their song “The Curse of Millhaven” (1996), Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds portray the gloomy atmosphere of a fictitious American small town, as told by Loretta, a homicidal 15-year-old girl. The song is a distant upshot of roots revival, a trend that grew global in the ’60s and ’70s as it instilled a particular political expression and urgency in rock songs by incorporating folk elements or gory stories into their structures. Yet, the demonic ambiance in “The Curse of Millhaven” incites more withdrawal than rebellion. And its narrative amusingly befits the communist propaganda about decrepit life and disaffection on the dark side of the capitalist moon.
In a loose adaptation of Dostoyevsky’s Demons, Jean-Luc Godard touches on what could be seen as a reversed context. In his film “La Chinoise” (1967), five disgruntled Parisian youngsters, distressed by the escalation of American imperialism and society’s surrender to consumerism, convene in a bourgeois apartment to bring about change by revolutionary means.
I see similarities between the revolutionary five and the imperialist spies, not only between their poseur airs and hip style (or their fetish for sunglasses), but also their zealous predilection to disrupt and overthrow. Despite their antagonist aspirations, there is an affinity between the glum setting of “Fije qe Priten” and ´it’s small and it’s mean it’s cold´ Millhaven. Regardless of their apparent differences, the fiery Véronique (played by Anne Wiazemsky in La Chinoise), reciting from the Little Red Book, echoes the hurting Loretta enumerating her murders through Cave’s beguiling timbre. They both exude a mood of To be on your own / With no direction home. United in their versatility, the aforementioned juxtapositions expose en passant the revolving nature of the end of ideological eras, as well as the fallacies of their zeitgeists.
Because the world is round it turns me on
Because the world is round*…
... it takes blindfolded precision to slip through history’s cycles, without asking yourself Because.
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* The Beatles, Because (1969)
ANRI SALA
Fani Zguro was born in 1977 in Tirana, Albania. He lives and works in Tirana and Berlin. Zguro graduated at the Accademia delle Belle Arti di Brera in Milan (1998-2007). In 2007 he won the International Onufri Prize assigned by the National Gallery of Arts in Tirana; in 2016 the International Mulliqi Prize assigned by the National Gallery of Kosovo in Pristina; the Best Video-Art award assigned by TIFF Tirana and in 2021 Award TOP7 Gallery of ArtVilnius21. Zguro curated the 14th International Onufri Prize at National Gallery of Arts in Tirana (2016). In 2017 was part of the AiR program at Q21 - Museums Quartier in Vienna and Cité Internationale des Arts Paris (2003-2004). Since 2015 he is part of apexart’s jury. His work has been shown at Haus der Kulturen der Welt Berlin, National Museum of Contemporary Art Bucharest, Musée des Civilisations de l’Europe et de la Mediterranée Marseille, Filmoteca Espanola Madrid, Photo Museum Braunschweig, 2nd Tirana Biennale, 3rd Mardin Biennial, 4th Young Artists Biennial of Bucharest, 6th Çanakkale Biennial, 7th Edition of the Black-and-White Biennial in Satu Mare, 13th Biennale of Cairo, Ludwig Museum Budapest, Belvedere 21 - Museum für Zeitgenössische Kunst Vienna, Palais Populaire Berlin, the New York Public Library and Centre Pompidou Paris.
CUT-UP
Townsend is pleased to present Broken Threads by Fani Zguro, one element of Cut-Up (Episode 1), a multi-part exhibition.
“Cut-Up (Episode 1)" is a solo exhibition by Fani Zguro, taking place in various locations, from February 10 to March 10, 2022. The exhibition will take place at once across ten locations in Accademia Albertina Turin, Accademia di Brera Milan, Closing Soon Athens, Erratum Milan, National Historical Museum Tirana, National Library of Albania Tirana, Townsend New York, Tegeler Weg Berlin, Tirana Art Center, and Phroom Platform Milan, opening worldwide on February 10, 2022.