Driant Zeneli per l'Albania

Driant Zeneli will represent Pavilion of Albania in 58^th International Art Exhibition - La Biennale di Venezia - with the project titled “Maybe the cosmos is not so extraordinary” commissioned by Minister of Culture of the Republic of Albania and curated by Alicia Knock, curator at Center Pompidou in the Department of Contemporary Art in Paris. The title is inspired by science fiction novel of Albanian author Arion Hysenbegas, “Drejt Epsilonit të Eridanit” (“Towards Epsilon of Eridan”), first published in 1983 and republished uncensored in 2018.

Driant Zeneli (1983, Shkoder, Albania), lives between Milan and Tirana. In 2011 he represented Albania at the 54th International Art Exhibition – Venice Biennale. In 2008 he won the Onufri International Contemporary Art Prize, Tirana, in 2009 the Young European Artist Award Trieste Contemporanea and in 2017 MOROSO Prize, Italy. He was the artistic director of Mediterranea 18, the Young Artists Biennale from Europe and Mediterranean, taking place for the first time in 2017 between Tirana and Durres. He is co-founder of Harabel Contemporary Art Platform, Tirana.

Alicia Knock - Curator at the Centre Pompidou in the Contemporary art and Prospective Department, working at expanding the museum towards Africa and Central Europe, through both acquisitions and exhibitions. In charge of recent Duchamp Prize exhibitions (Kader Attia, Yto Barrada, Ulla von Brandenburg and Barthélémy Toguo, 2016; “The most foreign country”, women artists from the Duchamp Prize, Fondation Fernet Branca, 2017; Maja Bajevic, Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige, Charlotte Moth, Vittorio Santoro, 2017), she is also involved in the new project space of the Pompidou, Galerie 0, aiming at becoming a laboratory for new practices.