Often the most inspiring photographs portray ordinary people intent in carrying out everyday tasks. Early pictures taken in photographic studios are also intriguing as they prompt us to stop and think about the people portrayed, about their lives and family ties and about the purpose of having that specific portrait taken.
Suspended between art and history, a photographic exhibition opening in November at Milan's La Triennale will explore all these themes through some rarely seen images from Albania. Curated by Zef Paci, "L'archivio Marubi. Il rituale fotografico" (Marubi Archive. The photography ritual; November 16 – December 09, 2018) will feature around 170 black and white images from a prestigious institution established in honour of Pietro Marubi.
Born in 1834 Italian photographer Pietro Marubbi (then Marubi and also known as Pjetër Marubi) flew from Italy for political reasons. A group of Mazzini supporters killed the Duke of Parma and Marubi was among the suspected ones, he therefore left Piacenza and, after a period in Greece, moved to Shkodra in Albania.
The city was an important cultural and international centre as proved by the British, French, Greek, Italian and Spanish communities that had established their lives there.
Marubi became known as a painter and architect, but his passion remained photography and, in 1856, he opened his first studio called "Dritëshkronjë" (meaning "Written with Light"), that quickly became one of the most important photographic studios in the area. From then on Marubi started chronicling the life of local people with a modern and objective style.
The photographer didn't have any children, so he adopted the sons of his gardener Rrok Kodheli and sent Mati e Mikel "Kel" Kodheli to study to Trieste in the Sebastianutti & Benque Studio.
Atelier Marubi continued thanks to Kel, who took over the family business after its founder's death and changed his name to Kel Marubi to honour Pietro.
Kel enriched his images with special effects, learned to retouch the negatives and started photographing outside the studio with more advanced cameras. He was also known for his images of natural and urban landscapes, and for his galleries of people. He loved taking images of people from all sorts of backgrounds as he felt that people from all classes had to be represented in his images.
The third generation of Marubi photographers in the family was represented by Kel's son, Gegë, who studied in Lyon in 1923-1927 at the first school of photography and cinema founded by the Lumière brothers, and worked in Shkodra as a professional photographer from 1928 to 1940. He pioneered working with celluloid instead of glass plates and became a master when it came to shooting close-ups and landscapes.
In the early '70s Gegë donated to the Albanian state the family archive (some sources say he was actually obliged to donate the archive to the State...), and his example was followed by other photographers - Pici, Jakova, Rraboshta and Nenshati - who reunited their archives to the main one from the Marubi Atelier.
The Marubi Archive is preserved at the Muzeu Kombëtar i Fotografisë "Marubi" (National Museum of Photography Marubi), the only museum of photography dedicated to Albania that stores over 500,000 photographs. The oldest photos in the collection date from 1858- 1859 and portray Albanian fighter and leader Hamz Kazazi and arbëreshë poet Leonardo de Martino.
Some of the images were published in publications such as L'Illustrazione Italiana, The Illustrated London News and La Guerra d'Oriente, and documented northern Albanian history from the League of Prizren onwards.
The archive received UNESCO funding to preserve the collection and divulge it and it is widely considered as one of the most important photographic heritages in Europe.
The exhibition at La Triennale is an anthropological and historical journey through faces and places: the selection will include events such as uprisings and town life in Shkodra between the 1800s and the 1900s. But the core of the exhibition is represented by the portraits of tribal leaders, families, soldiers, politicians and merchants.
The images of women promise to be particularly inspiring for fashion and costume designers and students: some of them appear clad in traditional costumes and accessories; others look like ghosts, their faces completely covered and their bodies wrapped up in voluminous Winter coats that seem to swallow them.
Only a few of the photos included in "Marubi Archive - The Photography Ritual" were ever published, the exhibition is therefore a unique way to discover these rare images. The event hopes to get the Marubi Phototeque known while promoting a rich dialogue between tradition and modernity, and the past and the present and discovering not just Marubi, but also the photographers who came after him, including Kol Idromeno, Ymer Bali, Mandi Koçi, Jani Ristani, Mihal Popi, Ali Bakiu, Niko Stefani, Misto Cici, Petro Dhimitri and, more recently, Besim Fusha, Petrit Kumi and Niko Xhufka.
Image credits for this post
1. Pietro Marubbi, Self-Portrait
2. Pietro Marubbi, Kostaqi Davario, Two Sisters
3. Kel Marubi, Sadri Keçi Family
4. Kel Marubi, Corpus Christi Procession, 1929
5. Kel Marubi, Kel Marubi with his family
6. Gegë Marubi, Zef Mati Halili with a friend, 1940
7. Gegë Marubi, Teofik Puka, 1932
8. Kel Marubi, Barber from Shkodra
9. Marubi Archive, Catholic woman
10. Marubi Archive, Catholic woman wearing winter ensemble
11. Angjelin Nenshati, Inauguration of the asphalting paving machine, 1968
12. Shan Pici, View of Shkroda, 1936
13. Shan Pici, Mountain houses, Shosh – Dukagjin, 1938
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