There’s a plagiaristic quality to language in general by virtue of how words always refer to one another in order to create meaning. I find it difficult to imagine a meaning that is enclosed and autonomous but we see people do so every day because it’s also difficult to make sense of an object that’s inhabited by different && contradictory meanings.
Perhaps appropriation art is always melancholic. The defeat, and conceit, is built in. But this self-awareness might also create an effect that one can find comfort in — its recursiveness, the Möbius strip as self-soothing mechanism — whistling while you work.
Like the notion of anticipatory plagiarism, Lala’s logic follows that not only are artists inspired by those who precede them, but in fact are stealing from those who succeed them — and in that same breath, those who preceded them were lifting from those who would succeed them. It’s not the pathetic hamster wheel of history (Marx: “All great world-historic facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice […] the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce.”) but a generative space to take what you will and use it as a productive constraint across time. The beauty of appropriation is that a thing can appear the same but not mean the same as its object of affection.
While the Oulipeans, who coined the term le plagiat par anticipation, used constraint as form, Lala uses form as constraint — and in response usually fucks with it, in subtle and not-so-subtle ways. Here, contradiction plays out through language, with the listed materials challenging what the objects look like. Language breaks down materials which then break down experience which then breaks down language. With Lala’s work, everything feels coded, and sometimes he offers keys, often coyly, a wink, a wave, a whistle.
text by Leah Whitman—Salkin
Sem Lala (b. 2000, Elbasan, Albania) is an artist and musician based in New York, currently studying at Bard College. His most recent solo presentation, Flipside, was split across Liste and Hot Wheels Athens (2024). Lala’s work has been exhibited at Forde, Geneva (2024); Plymouth Rock, Zurich (2021); Weiss Falk, Basel (2020); gta Exhibitions, Zurich (2020); Haus Wien, Vienna (2021); Les Urbaines, Lausanne (2020); and Lateral Roma, Rome (2021). As Semka, he performs and produces music through his label Czarnagora, with performances at Kunsthalle Basel (2024); Istituto Svizzero, Milan (2021); the National Gallery of Arts, Tirana (2021); and Kunsthalle Zurich (2020). Titled Works will be his first exhibition in Poland.
źródło: https://foksalgalleryfoundation.com/exhibition/sem-lala-titled-works
