reviews

  • Helidon Gjergji, e-mages, 2009, video projection on broken mirror, 4 minutes 15 seconds. Installation view.

    Helidon Gjergji, e-mages, 2009, video projection on broken mirror, 4 minutes 15 seconds. Installation view.

    Helidon Gjergji

    National Gallery of Arts

    The titular centerpiece of Helidon Gjergji’s show “e-mages,” at the National Gallery of Arts, is a slide show in which fragmented photos of Joseph Stalin’s family and friends are projected onto a shattered mirror lying on the floor in front of the projector and, in turn, reflected onto the wall. According to Gjergji’s fictional narrative, Stalin’s mother, Ketevan Geladze, has chosen the pictures for a Facebook album—a wink at social media as a form of personal propaganda. The intimate nature of the black-and-white snapshots only enhances the disconcerting effect of seeing a tyrant dandling

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