Iva Lulashi's Albanian Pavilion at Venice Biennale Explores Desire and Sexuality

At the 60th Venice Biennale, the Albanian Pavilion in the Arsenale features Italian-Albanian painter Iva Lulashi (b. 1988, Tirana) with new works installed in a 1:1 reconstruction of her Milan apartment-studio. Curator Antonio Grulli titled the pavilion 'Love as a Glass of Water,' referencing feminist revolutionary Alexandra Kollontai's theory of sexual impulses as a natural human need, like drinking water. The title evokes love, glass (a Venetian specialty), and water (a metaphor for fluidity and danger). Lulashi's paintings center on sex, love, and desire, approached with simplicity rather than ideology. Works like 'Il silenzio di latte' (2021) and 'VOI' (2020) resemble film stills, chosen for their 'inhabited depth' and ambiguous complexity. The pavilion includes new works made for the Biennale alongside select older pieces, emphasizing liquidity. Lulashi embodies the Biennale theme 'Stranieri Ovunque – Foreigners Everywhere' curated by Adriano Pedrosa, as part of the Albanian diaspora and possessing a hybrid Italian-Albanian identity. Her painting blends different traditions, and sexuality is presented as a universal, revolutionary force transcending national and cultural barriers.