Edi Rama

“I found myself drawing almost all my working time whilst interacting with people in my office or on the phone. And I came to appreciate that I wasn't drawing – my hand was.”

—Edi Rama

Edi Rama (b. 1964) lives and works in Tirana. A former professor of painting at the Academy of Fine Arts and author of several books, he has served as Prime Minister of Albania since 2013. Rama, who was a practicing artist in Paris until being asked to return to Albania as Minister of Culture in 1998, explains that he initially started making his autonomous, stream-of-consciousness drawings more from a sense of dislocation than a desire to create artworks: “I found myself drawing almost all my working time whilst interacting with people in my office or on the phone. And I came to appreciate that I wasn't drawing – my hand was.” Rama gradually realized that his drawings were neither a diversionary activity nor an aesthetic indulgence but becoming an increasingly elucidatory necessity.

Recent solo exhibitions of Edi Rama’s work include Improvisations, Zappeion, Athens, Greece (2023) and Edi Rama: Work, which travelled from Kunsthalle Rostock, Germany (2018) to the Nevada Museum of Art, Reno, (2019). Rama’s work has also been included in numerous two-person or group exhibitions including at the São Paulo Biennial (1994); Haus der Kunst, Munich (2004); the Centre Pompidou, Paris (2010); the Biennale of Marrakesh, Morocco (2015); the New Museum, New York (2016); and the Venice Biennial (2003 and 2017).