Authors

Discussion

With the rise of artist–politician Edi Rama to power in the wake of the social and economical collapse of 1997, Albania saw the development of a particular form of propaganda, which married the political narrative of Third Way neoliberal social-democracy to the artistic movement of Relational Esthetics. The power of this discource resided in the cooptation of a particular esthetics of contemporary art, its edginess and intellectualism, in defense of what was basically yet another form of authoritarinism.

This paper explores the political and artistic developments of the preceding decade that provided the foundations for this unlikely alliance, in particular the transformation of an entire generation of middle cadre "nepo babies" that were thrust into a shock-doctrine capitalist casino system dominated by foreign donor subsistence, Ponzi schemes, and eventual near-civil war. It addresses the question of what precisely is meant with the concept of "transition," and what forms of artistic and political alliance are sustained by it.