Anri Sala b. 1974
"I like to use a piece of music as a fossil, which is a trace of its own past context, but also bring it toward its own future, which is our present."
– Anri Sala
Artist Biography
Anri Sala (b. 1974, Tirana, Albania, based in Berlin, Germany) explores how the experience of reality can be shaped by the dynamic relationships between image, architecture and sound. His work is often presented as immersive environments that subject the viewer to a suspended sense of time, in order to present themes of cultural transformation and history, and how we confront them on personal and collective scales.
Part of a generation of young Albanian artists emerging from the fall of communism and outbreak of civil unrest throughout the 1990s, Sala’s early works—films that reflected on sociopolitical tensions—were marked by visual simplicity and a personal, documentary tone. This was in contrast to the prevailing styles of Western video artists then, which prioritised spectacularity and structural experimentation. From the 2000s, Sala’s narrative approach was primarily informed by non-verbal elements of film, such as image and music. All of a Tremble (Encounter 1) (2017), an exploration of the sculptural properties of sound, features a modified vintage roller that automatically imprints two wallpaper patterns across a wall. Its continuous rotation produces melodies specific to each pattern.
Sala obtained his BFA in Painting from the National Academy of Arts, Tirana in 1996, following which he completed his further studies in Video at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs, Paris in 1998 and his postgraduate studies in Film Directing at Le Fresnoy, Studio National des Arts Contemporains, Tourcoing in 2000. His work is in major collections including the Art Institute of Chicago; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Dallas Museum of Art; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Barcelona; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Tate, London; and Walker Art Center, Minneapolis.
Notable recent exhibitions include TRANSFIGURED (2022), Galleria d'Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Bergamo; Anri Sala (2021), Kunsthaus Bregenz; The Last Resort (2019), Mudam Museum of Modern Art, Luxembourg; As You Go (2019), Castello di Rivoli, Turin; The Last Resort (2018), Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, Moscow; and Anri Sala (2017), Museo Tamayo Arte Contemporáneo, Mexico City. The artist has also participated in major international festivals including more recently the 1st Biennale Son (2023), Valais; The Dreamers (2021), 58th Belgrade Biennale; 4th Tirana Biennial (2021); Viva Arte Viva (2017), 57th Venice Biennale; and Gestures and Archives of the Present, Genealogies of the Future (2016), 10th Taipei Biennial. Sala represented France at Encyclopedic Palace (2013), 55th Venice Biennale.
Anri Sala had his residency at the STPI Workshop in 2015, resulting in the group exhibition Exquisite Trust (Blindly Collective Collaborations) (2017) with artists Carston Höller, Tobias Rehberger and Rirkrit Tiravanija.