Harbach 2020

Curator: Gazmend Freitag's "Harbach," created in 2020 with acrylic paint, offers a lush, evocative view of an autumnal path. Editor: The color palette strikes me immediately—all that vibrant yellow, with touches of crimson and deep green. It’s overwhelmingly joyful, almost aggressively so! Curator: Freitag often works "en plein air," so what we're seeing here is likely a direct response to the landscape. Knowing this, consider the tradition of landscape painting, and who has historically had access to represent these kinds of scenes. The dominance of these kinds of pastoral settings serves as a sharp contrast to more urgent societal issues that often go unaddressed or ignored by similar historical powers. Editor: That’s an interesting point. It feels almost too picturesque to be true, that perfection could even signify some kind of social blindness or disconnect. However, that very vividness calls to mind for me the vanitas tradition, reminding us of the ephemeral nature of beauty. Here, these glorious trees will soon be barren; their colorful display only a brief moment. Curator: Certainly, landscape paintings, including impressionist ones, carry symbolic weight. Freitag's work exists within this tradition but I wonder how to consider these issues with regards to a contemporary Albanian painter? It begs the question of if "nature" itself remains the same irrespective of cultural or geopolitical setting. Or can different relations to nature reveal or obscure unique dynamics tied to place? Editor: Thinking of symbolic weight, that path that invites the eye to move to the center might imply an escape or journey. I am also taken by how a space seemingly lacking people becomes highly relatable and human, reminding one of childhood experiences running through parks, perhaps, or jumping in leaf piles. The cultural values we ascribe to “nature” itself are ever shifting, that might lead back to where we began here. Curator: Well, these impressions certainly give us much to contemplate in viewing Gazmend Freitag's artwork. Editor: Yes, a journey filled with beautiful reflections.