Category Archives: Albania

boxed in Tirana

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below: Hippity hipster rabbit with sunglasses and tatts.

painted sidewalk box on a sidewalk in Tirana, a hipster with rabbit head, wearing sunglasses and with tattoos on his arm

below: Sargent Pepper theme, character in green with drums – Ringo Starr from the Beatles.

painted sidewalk box on a sidewalk in Tirana, Sargent Pepper cartoon character in green and playing drums, like Ringo Starr

below: A second Sargent Pepper character but this time it’s George Harrison in yellow. I didn’t see the other Beatles but I wouldn’t be surprised if they are in the city somewhere.

painted sidewalk box on a sidewalk in Tirana, Sargent Pepper cartoon character in yellow playing guitar while sitting cross legged on the floor

below: A child rides on the back of a white goose as it flies in front of a boat. The boy, in the red hat, is Nils and he has been bewitched by an elf so that he is only a few inches tall. The goose is his transportation and together they have adventures. Nils saves the goose and some ducks from a hungry fox; he also rescues a baby squirrel from a hunter. The Nils books were written in the early 1900s by Selma Lagerlof (Swedish), the first woman to win a Nobel prize in literature.

painted sidewalk box on a sidewalk in Tirana, large white goose flying over a wooden boat

below: Beavis and Butthead from the 1990s animated TV series.

painted sidewalk box on a sidewalk in Tirana, television characters from the 1990s, Beavis and Butthead, sitting on a red couch

below: Green Frankenstein.

painted sidewalk box on a sidewalk in Tirana, portrait of Frankenstein with green face

below: Blue woman with a feather

the narrow side of painted sidewalk box on a sidewalk in Tirana, painted blue with the portrait of a woman

below: His arms are covered with tattoos but the face has been defaced (or was very strange to begin with?) so I am having trouble figuring out who the character is.

painted sidewalk box on a sidewalk in Tirana,

below: Angry bird on the right, standing beside another hipster rabbit. The words stencilled on the box, “Nidermarrja e Dekorit Bashkia Tirane”, roughly translates to Decoration Enterprise, Tirana Municipality. There is a Dekori – Bashkia Tirane instagram page that features some of the artists whose works are found Tirane.

two painted sidewalk box on a sidewalk in Tirana, the one on the right is a red angry bird from the game

below: Chuck Norris

painted sidewalk box on a sidewalk in Tirana, portrait of man with text that says Chuck Norris counted to infinity twice

below: Quentin Tarantino.

painted sidewalk box on a sidewalk in Tirana, portrait of Quentin Tarantino

below: A tiger growls at the passing traffic

painted sidewalk box on a sidewalk in Tirana, tiger with open mouth

below: An older man with many birds in his beard, inspired by a poem by Edward Lear:
” There was an Old Man with a beard,
Who said, “It is just as I feared!—
Two Owls and a Hen, four Larks and a Wren,
Have all built their nests in my beard.”

painted sidewalk box on a sidewalk in Tirana, man with large grey beard with birds in it

below: A rooster on a cat on a dog on a donkey in the night. This time it is a story that is referenced here, “The Town Musicians of Bremen”. Although the story dates from the 12th century it was first published in 1819 by the Brothers Grimm. It is the tale of 4 older animals no longer useful on their farms who meet up and decide to go to the city of Bremen to be musicians. They never get there but they have other adventures instead (you’ll have to read the story to get the details!)

painted sidewalk box on a sidewalk in Tirana, silhouettes of animals stacked on top of a donkey. A rooster sits at the top. Cat and dog in the middle, night time

below: Another story – here it is Peter Pan and the Darling children, Wendy, John, and Michael, flying off to Never Never Land.

painted sidewalk box on a sidewalk in Tirana, yellow box with black silhouettes of Peter Pan and the three children flying through the sky

below: Bob Marley in front of Hops.

painted sidewalk box on a sidewalk in Tirana, portrait of reggae musician Bob Marley

along Rruga Myslym Syri

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Rruga Myslym Syri is a fairly busy street in central Tirana, lined with shops and small businesses. Either on this street or in nearby alleys and small streets there is some street art. First, two small pieces by Franko (aka Franko Dinaj), a local artist.

mural painted by franco on a wall in Tirana, of two young boys, backs to painter, one wearing a red jacket with Albanian symbol, the other wearing a blue jacket with yellow Ukranian map on it

mural of a young person with mask partially covering the face mask is made using Ukranian flag, shooting a sling shot

below: Man carrying bike, a mural by Artez with the title: “Mos Paragjyko – Do not Prejudice”

large mural of a man carrying a bike over his shoulder

below: Calligraphy and circles, an artwork by Davide DPA

a Davide mural, calligraphy as element, concentric circles, red background

back part of Davide calligraphy based mural

“Personii ge kam perballe eshte fija e humbur qe me ndihmon ta gjej veten”

below: A big green dog by MOTS

mural of a green dog, sitting

below: Unsinkable stencil with a few famous people like Einstein and Laurel & Hardy, and many not so famous people.

black stencil on white wall with heads of many famous people, Laurel and Hardy, plus word unsinkable

below: Playing basketball on the wall.

black stencil of two people on a white wall
mural of a child riding on the back of a character that is half fish and half submarine

below: A woman in blue

small blue portrait of a woman painted on the side of a metal sidewalk box

below: This woman is probably advertising a women’s hair salon but I liked the look of it just the same.

black and white drawing or painting of a woman with a lot of curlers pins in her hair

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older women

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This mural, a large photograph, has not weathered all that well. It’s title is “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” and the artist is Bifido. On her website, Bifido says this about the artwork: “This work should have been called “selfportrait”, as it express how I’m feeling in this moment in the sight of the world. Working, talking, scoping, breathing Tirana atmosphere, I really realized, for the very first time, how it feels to be a woman caught in the grips of this male chauvinist society, to be a woman physically and mentally oppressed by men. As the work progressed, the sense of it changed revealing, maybe, the real reason that. I come back home, to Italy, more aware of something that makes me feel heartbroken, hoping one day something will change.” Please take a look at her website, especially if you want to see the photo in its original form.

By now you may have guessed that the word older in the title of this post has nothing to do with the age of the woman in the mural but in the condition of the mural itself. The Bifido work above is from either 2018 or 2019. Of the same vintage, is a mural by HazardUK

It’s title is “Motra Tone Revisited” which refers to a famous painting, “Motra Tone” also known as ”The Albanian Monalisa”, that was painted by Kole Idromeno (1860-1939).

below: This is a picture of that famous painting (found online, credit: public domain, wikipedia). She hangs in the National Art Gallery in Tirana.

a boy and a girl

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Two large murals on adjacent buildings, both painted during Tirana’s MurAL Fest 2021. In the back is a boy reading, “Overseas Stories”. In the foreground is a large female face.

two large murals on adjacent low rise apartment blocks in Tirana. One is a woman's face by manomatic and the other is in gold and blue, a boy on a chair reading a book with the chair acting as a boat sailing over blue seas

below: Close up picture of the woman’s face with red slashes. Many of his recent murals are portraits with slashes of colour, especially reds and blues.

close up of woman's face in portrait by manomatic, mural

below: “Overseas Stories” by Italian artist Mattia Campo Dall’Orto; a boy’s journey of imagination over blue seas as he reads a book.

Durazzo 2014

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green vine grows in front of a blue painting, outside, of boats on the water, grape vines or ivy

All of the paintings in this blog post were seen in a lane in Durres Albania, in the “old town” part of the city near the Roman amphitheatre.

paintings in a laneway, on the left is a painting of a partially open wood doorway with a girl stepping out and smiling at the two boys on the front step. A black and white cat is also there. Some words are written in the corner, then on the right is a pale pastel coloured painting of flowers and leaves

Faleminderit Shqiperi = Thank you Albania!

They were all painted in 2014 (8 years ago) so most of them are looking a little weathered.

painting of kids, 2 boys and a girl, playing in a doorway

Written beside the painting below: “Ass. Cult. Ecletica 1st Bienale di Durazzo 2014”. 

painting on exterior concrete wall, a green shape with a face seems to be in water, beside a tree
paiting on outdoors wall, in black silhouette, a couple kiss under an open umbrella
a painting on a wall on a narrow street in Durres, a fisherman holding his net watches a woman dive into the water
a man walks past a mural on a concrete wall of a pair of pink lovebirds on a grey tree with grey and pink leaves

painting of a door on an exterior wall with a semi circular window above the door

mural on a wall in a lane, a woman looking out of a window, children playing on the beach

mural on a wall in an alley, seaside, old urn or jug, a helmet, other treasures washed up on the shore or hidden away

street art painting of a mans tie with colours and shapes on it as well as a black Albanian crest symbol
painting of fish swimming away from fish hooks, outdoor mural street art
painting on an outside wall
abstract mural around a window with a musical theme - a guitar, some music notes, treble clef

With thanks to the Mulliri Vjeter coffee shop on Rruga Myslym Shyri in Tirana where I hung out trying to stay cool while editing photos for this post. June 2022

Tanini’s colours and shapes

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As I walked around Tirana I saw several examples of murals by Albanian artist Eljan Tanini. This blog post features three – a whole building covered by his shapes and colours, a tall vertical mural, and last, a wall with four panels.

below: All sides of the building are covered with whimsical playful shapes in Blloku.

a our storey building with stores at ground level, covered with mural of shapes and colours, lower floors have grey background, upper level has yellow background, painted by Eljan Tanini
close up of some of the windows of a building with the mural that is painted around them

below: Street scene on Rruga Myslym Shyri with the bottom part of Tanini mural showing. This mural was painted as part of MurAL Fest 2018.
street view, pedestrians on sidewalk, umbrellas over fruit stand, shops, bottom part of mural by Eljan Tanini

tall mural by Eljan Tanini

below: Four panels in a concrete wall have abstract paintings by Tanini (one on the left, with a blue background, is not shown).
yellow building in the background, concrete fence with recessed panels that have been painted with bright coloured abstract paintings
a panel from exterior wall painted byEljan Tanini, abstract shapes and colors on orange background

stripes, and others, near the corner

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On the southeast corner of the intersection of Bajram Curri Blvd and Rruga Sulejman Delvina in Tirana there is an apartment complex that has been painted in bright coloured stripes.

low rise apartment building painted in vertical stripes, with Mon Cheri coffee shop on the ground floor

The stripes change to shapes on the other side.

lowrise apartment building with coloured shapes painted on it

lowrise apartment building with coloured shapes painted on it

below: In the middle of the complex is a small structure with one wall painted as part of MurAL fest one year. The title is “Visual Diary” and it the work of Albanian artist Mariola Mocka.

small building structure with one wall covered with a painting, bright blue background with stylized items painted on it like

below: Another side of the structure is this abstract painting by noreason.

part of a mural in black and white shapes

And here, either the stripes fade away or else they have been partially repainted.

Nikola Jorga’s portrait

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a large mural in Tirana Albania on a concrete wall, a portrait of Nikola Jorga, a Romanian historian who died in 1940, along with some text in Romanian

He was born Nicu N. Iorga in Romania on 17 Jan 1871. He was a prolific writer and cultural historian. His biography is long and it gets complicated when discussing his scholarly works and opinions so I will leave that for you to read on Wikipedia (or similar) if you are interested. I haven’t figured out why he is featured on a mural in Albania. He was murdered in 1940 by the Iron Guard, a Romanian militant revolutionary fascist movement and political party.

top part of mural, head and portrait of Nikola Jorga

The text is written in Albanian (or Romanian, google translate had trouble with this) but the first few words translate as “When two quarrel, the third wins”

long text in Romanian from a mural

This mural was painted by Irlo Doidoi for MurAL Fest 2019.