Edi Hila's Milan Exhibition Explores Displacement and Censorship

Galleria Raffaella Cortese in Milan presents 'Al di là del vetro', a solo exhibition by Albanian artist Edi Hila (born 1944 in Shkodër). The show features large-scale paintings created after the 2021 lockdown, depicting interior and exterior landscapes devoid of human presence. Hila's work reflects his experience of political censorship under the communist regime in Albania, where he was sent to a reeducation camp for a decade after painting a work deemed ideologically incorrect. The exhibition includes pieces such as 'Un momento da ricordare' (2021), 'La luce che modella' (2021), 'Uscita' (2021), 'Natura dipinge gli alberi II' (2021), and the triptych 'People of the future' (1997), which references the Otranto tragedy of Albanian migrants. Hila's paintings employ tilted planes, desaturated colors, and a white veil that transforms spaces into mental stages, exploring the persistence of human traces in environments.