Anri Sala
Anri Sala was born in 1974 in Tirana, Albania. He received his BA in Painting and Sculpture from the National Academy of Arts Tirana, studied Video at the École Nationale des Arts Décoratifs in Paris and completed post-graduate studies in Film Directing at Le Fresnoy–Studio National des Arts Contemporains in Tourcoing. The artist lives and works in Berlin.
Sala has received the Vincent Award (2014), the 10th Benesse Prize (2013), the Absolut Art Award (2011), and the Young Artist Prize at the Venice Biennale (2001). He has taken part in many group exhibitions and biennials, including the 12th Havana Biennial (2015), the Sharjah Biennial 11 (2013), the 9th Gwangju Biennale (2012), dOCUMENTA (13) (2012), the 29th São Paulo Biennial (2010), the 2nd Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art (2007), and the 4th Berlin Biennale (2006).
In 2013, Anri Sala represented France in the 55th Venice Biennale with his exhibition Ravel Ravel Unravel.
Anri Sala’s oeuvre explores the relationships between music and narrative, architecture and film, interleaving qualities of different media in both complex and intuitive ways to produce works in which one medium takes on the qualities of another. His practice encompasses sound and video installation, film, sculpture, photographs, drawings, books, scores and, as Mark Godfrey has noted, “the exhibitions wherein individual works are arranged into ensembles.”
Recent solo exhibitions include: Anri Sala. Transfigured, Galleria d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Bergamo (2022); Anri Sala, Kunsthaus Bregenz (2021); Time No Longer, Buffalo Bayou Park Cistern, Houston (2021); Anri Sala: The Last Resort, MUDAM, Grand-Duc Jean, Luxembourg (2020); AS YOU GO (Châteaux en Espagne), Centro Botín, Santander (2019–20); Anri Sala. Le Temps coudé, MUDAM, Grand-Duc Jean, Luxembourg (2019–20); AS YOU GO, Castello di Rivoli, Turin (2019); The Last Resort, Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, Moscow (2018–19); Clocked Perspective, Fundación Jumex, Public Plaza, Mexico City (2017); The Last Resort, 33rd Kaldor Public Art Projects, Observatory Hill Rotunda, Sydney (2017); Anri Sala, Museo Rufino Tamayo, Mexico City (2017); All of a Tremble, Benesse Art Site, Teshima Seawall House, Teshima (2016); Anri Sala:o momento presente, IMS Instituto Moreira Salles, Rio de Janeiro (2016); Anri Sala: Answer Me, New Museum, New York (2016); The Present Moment, Haus der Kunst, Munich (2015); No Names No Title, The Helena Rubinstein Pavilion for Contemporary Art, Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Tel Aviv (2014); Anri Sala: Two Films, Museum of Contemporary Art, Detroit (2012); Anri Sala, Louisiana Museum, Humlebæk (2012); Anri Sala, Centre Pompidou, Paris (2012); Anri Sala, National Museum of Art, Osaka (2011); Anri Sala, MAC–Musée d’art contemporain, Montréal (2011); Anri Sala, Serpentine Gallery, London (2011), and Purchase Not By Moonlight, Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami (2008).
Selected group exhibitions include: Forms of Fragility, Galerie Rudolfinum, Prague (2022); Atmen, Kunsthalle Hamburg (2022); Sound and Silence, Kunstmuseum Bonn, Bonn (2021); 58th October Salon: The Dreamers, Belgrade (2021); The Paradox of Stillness: Art, Object, and Performance, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis (2021); Mythologies – The Beginning and End of Civilizations, ARoS Aarhus Art Museum, Aarhus (2020); Making Art Public: 50 Years of Kaldor Public Art Projects, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney (2019); Your Footsteps are the Road, for there is no Road, Shanghai Minsheng Art Museum, Shanghai (2019); All That We Have in Common, MOMus Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki (2019); Distance Intime. Chefs-d'oeuvre de la Collection Ishikawa, MO.CO. – Montpellier Contemporain, Hôtel des Collections, Montpellier (2019); AMBITUS, Kunstmuseum Magdeburg (2018), Faith Love Hope, Kunsthaus Graz (2018); All That We Have in Common, Museum of Contemporary Art, Skopje (2018); Summer in Shanghai, Pond Society, Shanghai (2017); Yokohama Triennale 2017: Islands, Constellations & Galapagos, Yokohama Museum of Art, Yokohama (2017); Exquisite Trust (Blindly Collective Collaborations), STPI Singapore (2017); Cher(e)s Ami(e)s: Hommage aux donateurs des collections contemporaines, Centre Pompidou, Paris (2016); L’image volée, Fondazione Prada, Milan (2016); Between the Idea and the Experience, 12th Havana Biennial, Havana (2015); Fruits of passion, Hyogo Prefectural Museum of Art, Kobe (2014); Voice of Images, Palazzo Grassi, Venice (2012), and French Window: Looking at Contemporary Art through the Marcel Duchamp Prize, Mori Art Museum, Tokyo (2011).
Sala’s work is held in many public collections including: ARoS – Aarhus Art Museum, Aarhus; Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas; Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris; Fundación Jumex Arte Contemporáneo, Mexico City; Kunsthaus Zürich; LUMA Foundation, Zurich; Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, Rotterdam; Museum Folkwang, Essen; National Museum of Osaka; Pinault Collection, Venice; Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin; Tate Gallery, London; The Israel Museum, Jerusalem; The Museum of Modern Art, New York, and Ishikawa Collection, Okayama.