Brotherhood

Painting Project

2013
7 x 50 x 50cm

2014
170 x 40cm

BROTHERHOOD PHALLICISM
Alban Muja’s artistic position is in a way very specific since it reflects and comments contemporary society and it’s burdens but mostly in very specific geopolitical context. In a way his artworks are permeated with the bitterness of the geopolitical, social and artistic system, which is communicated by individual artistic acts – some ironic, some intimate but always critical. In the same way, one of the latest Alban Muja’s works Brotherhood is constructed and exposes the very specifics of a phenomena that is present in the society of Kosova. It is the omnipresent phenomena of Kosova society but in exaggerating form it is most visible in the countryside and in non-urban areas. The work has many layers but in the first place, it poses the problem of male tradition and how it is manifested through the social position symbol – a house. A house becomes a symbol for the family and a basic unit of the male pride which is visible outwards. This actually would not be so strange since that kind of phenomena is also inherent to some other geographical territories but in the case of Kosova, a house as a basic unit is cloned for the number of every male individual in the family. In this way, one house gets multiplied and often you get a chain of completely identical houses which some of them are functionless or even worse – not inhabited (from various reasons). The phenomena shows just the power of the male role in the family and a house becomes a phallic symbol which stresses the importance of the father figure. And on the other hand, the work tries to pose the role of the woman figure which is in the society completely excluded. The phenomena is not new and it is present in the society through many generations but now in the time of turbo-capitalism the »brotherhoods« are expanding behind every corner and the phenomenon is in a full swing. For Alban Muja this phenomenon was an excellent platform to do a research which is stretching in a longer period of time and it is not jet finished. Even though brotherhoods are something very natural in the society of Kosova, Alban considers them as a »foreign body« what is also visible if you approach to the work in the context of aesthetics – brotherhoods rarely fit in the environment because of their unusual exteriors. Besides the process of visual documenting this phenomenon all over the country, Alban Muja also is collecting stories of people which are involved in »brotherhood« processes in the direct or indirect way. That is why Alban’s latest work Brotherhood becomes also a note of time and space which and direct process of re-questioning the society values.

Text by: Tevz Logar