MyTh-ing

In this exhibition titled MyTh-ing, the Albanian photographer Erjola Zhuka depicts everyday scenes and raw moments with her friends and her family, imbued with a powerful sense of reality and spontaneity.

IRIS ARLES is pleased to announce an upcoming solo exhibition of works by the Albanian photographer Erjola Zhuka titled MyTh-ing from August 20 to October 4.

Marking her first solo exhibition in France, this show will feature about 20 works she photographed mostly in Italy and Albania.

In this exhibition, Zhuka depicts everyday scenes and raw moments with her friends and family, imbued with a powerful sense of reality and spontaneity. 

The title MyTh-ing carries a double meaning, referring to both “myth” and “my thing”; the artist explains, “For me, myth is these people (that appear in the images).”

These images, which may even seem obscene at first glance, transcend visible forms of existence such as people, animals, and objects; they have the power to free our thoughts and our gaze from constraints, thereby returning them to mythical archetypes.

Domenico Quaranta, an Italian art critic, points out that Zhuka’s works share an affinity with the “visual garbage ” (Internet memes, social media images) to which we are exposed on a daily basis, while noting that her works are the result of “a laborious process and constant refinement of one's tools” and that his images draw on a primitive state and primordial myths.

Quaranta also believes that it is precisely this “Albania”—which Zhuka left at the age of ten, amid the chaos that followed democratization—that corresponds to this original state (which is neither a mere place nor a memory).

It is precisely this “foundation of authenticity and truth” that, according to Quaranta, underlies the image, captivates our gaze as a new photographic experience, and leads us to feel the power of the image, even as we are constantly exposed to a ceaseless flow of information in our daily lives.