ARDHJE 09 is an annually organized Exhibition that this year was organized for the third time. ARDHJE has the role of informing, documenting and spreading the works of the most interesting young artists in the field of visual arts.

“ This year the works of the nine artists shows us a trend of analysing a dynamic Albanian reality, without skipping the observations of the past.

Our reality is changing in front of our eyes with a complexity and speed never seen before. Therefore, it seems as if you are looking at an ongoing, constantly changing process. Reflecting on it, through a discipline such as visual arts whose purpose has always been to explore and reread reality, it becomes a way of being impartial towards these changes and having the possibility to be part of them. The Exhibition, which is held at a favourable time, at the same time as the Tirana Biannual, first of all wants to create possibilities of exchanging experiences that also young artists can take part of .”

Participating artists of this year´s Exhibition were:
Albi Zgjana, Blerta Kambo, Enkelejd Zonja, Gedmond Lushka, Lek Gjeloshi, Luçjan Bedeni, Nertila Pere, Suela Qoshja, Yllka Gjollesha.

Jury´s motivation for this year´s winner

On September 29, 2009, during the opening of the third edition of the ”ARDHJE” Award for Contemporary Art in Tirana/Albania, the international jury consisting of Ana Dzokic (Rotterdam/Belgrade), Edi Hila (Tirana/Albania) and Anri Sala (Tirana/Paris), awarded Lucjan Bedeni as winner of this year’s prize, with following motivation:

”This was a difficult process, because a few of the participants could have been the winner of this price. It was a complex choice as in some of the works we saw promising qualities. Those works took us into an interesting labyrinth of discussions, a dead-end, a gorrsokak as you may call it here, where we saw different lights, but in the impossibility to encourage all those qualities and their beholders, we decided that the chosen artist is Lucjan Bedeni. Bedeni´s creative results promise to develop and mature further when this possibility is given to him by our gorrsokak and will translate into the reality of the streets of New York. We appreciate Bedeni´s ability to pick and select from the everyday reality, elements which he motivates and turns into artistic meaning. This is an opportunity that he should use in order to cultivate in more precise ways the mediums he chooses in the services of his ideas.”

Images from the Exhibition:

Blerta Kambo, Foreign Albania_series, 30 shoots, print on aluminium, 20 x 30 cm	Blerta Kambo, Wannarexia - day 1, photography on paper
Aldi Zgjani, Untitled, Acrylic on canvas 100 x 240 cm, 2009	Lek Gjeloshi - Requiem, vide
Nertila Pere - Without title, video, 2009	Yllka Gjollesha - Denatyration, video
Lucjan Bedeni, (Untitled), Video 4 min.