Anri Sala
Anri Sala
A Thousand Windows. The World of the Insane, 2004
Courtesy of the artist, VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn
With the collapse of the dictatorship in Albania in the early 1990s, newspaper kiosks overnight became sites of an unprecedented pluralism. Newspapers filled with new voices and perspectives suddenly shaped the public sphere. Anri Sala, who experienced this turning point as a young man, captures in his photographs the atmosphere of this threshold: people gathering in front of kiosks, amazed, cautiously approaching a newfound freedom. At a time when information is omnipresent and often reduced to background noise, Sala’s images remind us of the original power of free expression. Here, the press is not shown as a commodity, but as an expression of democratic self-empowerment — a cornerstone of any open society.
Anri Sala was born in 1974 in Tirana, Albania. He first studied film direction in his home country, and later art and media in Paris. He now lives and works in Berlin. With his cross-media practice — spanning photography, film, and immersive sound installations — he is considered one of the most important artists of his generation. His works have been shown at the Venice Biennale, Tate Modern, Centre Pompidou, and the New Museum in New York, among others.