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"Hooligans
in Heaven"
"Hooligans
in Heaven" is the title of Sislej Xhafa's first solo exhibition
in Milan, in the Galleria Laura Pecci.
"I
Gigli di Bocconi" is the title of the exhibition that will be
held contemporaneously at the Luigi Bocconi business school in Via
Sarfatti 25, Milan. In
the first show, the artist made a built-in exhibition inside the
gallery. Much like a hooligan, Xhafa built walls and barriers,
upsetting the rules and the politics of the art world.Curators,
gallery owners and art critics are forced down a dark and narrow
corridor, lighted only by a few chinks through which a small, partial
view of the work is given.
Collectors
and buyers are received on a Persian rug at the foot of a portrait of
Albanian UCK commander "Johny", which has been embellished
for this installation with a triple gold leaf frame hung in the middle
of a large red wall.
Artists
receive a big space where they can spend some relaxing moments in
contemplation of a series of erotic drawings that run like a long
banner along the perimeter of the walls of the second room.
In
the center, there is the "conference-room" of the hooligans,
with a large glass table, mirrors, plants, and Xhafa's latest video
"Hooligans in Heaven". The video was filmed in the Arena of
Milan and shows three Albanians running non-stop while carrying a tree
trunk, as if to demonstrate their capacity to cross and overcome any
kind of barrier.In the Bocconi University business school, Sislej hung
6 portraits (taken by a Moroccan native) of the students with the
worst grades, and disregarding the system, he sublimates their
photographs with gold frames and plaques with the engraved name of
each person.
Sislej
Xhafa was born in 1970 in Peje, Kosovo, and lives between Italy and
New York. In short time he has attracted the attention of
international curators owing to his great virtuosity in form as well
as in concept. His work comprises performances, installations, videos,
drawings and photographs. It is focused on the phenomenon of illegal
aliens and migration, which he considers together to be the most
positive driving force in the world today. "Illegal aliens are
the power of tomorrow", he declared in an interview for Flash Art
in 1999.
Xhafa
won the Furla Art Prize in September 2000 and has participated in
important events, and national as well as international exhibitions
such as "Over the Edges" in Ghent, Belgium (curators:
Giacinto di Pietrantonio and Jan Hoet); "Zomer van de Poezie"
in Watou, Belgium; "Manifesta" in Ljubljana; "Chinese
Whispers" in New York at Apex Art. He has been selected to
represent Italy in the Biennial of Istanbul in September 2001.
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