Searches from Helidon Gjergji

The topic of perception and our relationship with images has always been the key to entering the practice of the artist Helidon Gjergji. He plays with our sense of smell, as in the eighth edition of the Manifesta in Murcia, or with our gaze, as in the unforgettable project Façades, revitalizing a social housing complex in Tirana, or with our imagination, as in the e-mages Installation , in the many forms of Screenings proposed in Polignano a Mare, in the personal exhibition at the Pino Pascali Foundation in 2016, Gjergji never fails in his ability to investigate our way of watching, reading, listening to the present.

The “Searching for Art” exhibition is a further step towards this journey, focusing on today’s conception of knowledge and consequently on how we understand and construct thought. In a world where the answers to our questions are increasingly close to us, where nevertheless the binomial “search and research” appears at all its limits, remaining on the surface and losing complexity, what might be the role of art? The artist’s approach almost becomes almost that of an archaeologist of the future. Some questions arise, wondering how artistic practice can be a peaceful weapon in the hands of a more conscious search for knowledge and extracting from the dust of the internet images that nullify the known meaning of things or that envelop them with new meanings , offering a wide range of interpretations and analyzes of trend phenomens.

The skeleton of art, recovered not accidentally and in the manner of a short circuit for an artist who has always conceptually worked in the traditional techniques of making – painting, drawing, photography – is put under the magnifying glass of the contemporary expectation that expands, being petted under the lure of Autocomplete. Automatically provoked and offered answers, as a result of our inability to focus a thought, transcend the great myths of art history, simplified icons of pop culture: Michelangelo winking at a kitten, Scream from Munch’s becomes a very healthy avocado. The beating heart of human anatomy mocks the likes on the Instagram platform, enriching the large number of emojis made by Eugene, the egg with 55 million likes, the most beloved post in the world, a phenomenon still unexplained in the popularity of our time.

– Santa Nastro