Helidon Gjergji

Albania / USAArtists

Biography

Helidon Gjergji was born in Tirana, Albania, and currently lives between Tirana and New York. He studied art in Albania, Italy and the USA. Gjergji has exhibited at the Venice Biennale, Manifesta, Tirana Biennale, Festival of Ideas – New Museum, Ludwig Museum, MASS MoCA, MADRE, and National Galleries of Albania, Kosovo, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Romania and Malta. His work has been reviewed in Artforum, Art in America, Mousse Magazine, Sculpture, Flash Art, Domus.

Archive records · BUNA vol.3 / 2025

Balkan Jazz, 2025 Site-specific installation; flagpoles, print on fabric 2 elements, 462 x 51.3 cm each

Artists

Balkan Jazz is a site-specific installation that reimagines the national flags of the 12 Balkan countries. Instead of their usual emblems, each flag features a vibrant, colorful graph representing the genetic code of its nation, based on the common Haplo-groupings. The flags are suspended from three public flagpoles, and as an ensemble they recall the helical structure of DNA. Rather than a display of the symbols of national identity, this ensemble is a playful representation of the underlying biological connections that nations share. The clear iconography of the flags suddenly gets transmuted into mesmerizing abstract paintings.