Anri Sala

(Albanian, born 1974)

Anri Sala is a contemporary Albanian artist known for his psychologically resonant film and video projects. In his work Answer Me (2008), Sala explores how sound paired with images can affect our ability to perceive both space and time while also conjuring memories. “I am interested in things told through images but not always through languages,” he has explained. “I tend to replace language as the most popular means of telling. When images tell things, they can always keep an ambiguity.” Born in 1974 in Tirana, Albania, he studied painting in his hometown at the National Academy of Arts. Sala went on to attend the École Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs in Paris, and participating in the 1999 Venice Biennale with his work Intervista—Finding the Words (1998). Over the following decades, the artist has continued to confront formal issues of the media he uses and the affect video, film, and sound can have on nostalgia. He currently lives and works in Berlin, Germany. Today, Sala’s works are held in the collections of the Tate Gallery in London, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, among others.