Anri Sala
Nocturnes
27 April - 3 June 2001

This is the first London exhibition for Anri Sala, a young Albanian artist living in Paris who has emerged swiftly to international prominence with films such as Byrek (2000), Intervista (1998) and Nocturnes (1999). Anri Sala's work is characterised by an objective, documentary approach to film making, revealing personal histories and hidden meanings within the dialogues of his characters.

Nocturnes, a single screen piece shot on 16mm film in Lille during 1999, is an intricately composed work in which two men discuss their experiences of life. Denis, a young French soldier recently returned from the Balkans, speaks with alarming candour of his brutal training and subsequent role as a 'blue hat' assassin expected to seek out and kill key military targets. Jacques, the owner of a tropical aquarium, reveals the harsh realities and stresses of life within the fish tanks lining his house. As we switch from one to the other, common denominators emerge linking the two men, who do not know each other but share similar experiences of stress and loneliness.

Denis: 'When you've got a gun, you've got to take care of it. There, they tell you: you work with your gun, you sleep with it, you have sex with it. In the shower you turn it upside down and cover it with a towel. A gun is normal, so when you get here and you don't have it, it changes you.'

Jacques: 'And the sound here is stressful, because it's everywhere and then sometimes it stops and it's awful. When the sound stops, I say to myself, oh shit, it's a disaster, they're all going to die. There's no more air, there's no more oxygen. Panic. In the middle of the night, at three in the morning, I wake up and come down, I can't hear the noise anymore, I can't hear the sound.'