The story of the Marubi studio started in about 1850, when the Italian Pietro Marubi emigrated to Shkodër, Albania, for political reasons. In 1856, just two decades after photography was invented, he established a photographic studio with the camera he brought with him from Italy. The studio’s camera shutters were not to stop for more than a century.
'Dynasty Marubi – a hundred years of Albanian studio photography', an exhibition of that legacy, is currently being staged by Foam (Fotografiemuseum Amsterdam), where a stream of black and white images provides a record of important aspects of Albania’s history and its people, captured by three generations of studio photographers from 1856–1959. In this country – the visual culture of which is little known – the collection provides a rich photographic history that stretches from Ottoman times to the communist period and includes social rituals, traditional costumes and group portraits of sociological significance.
Pietro Marubi started his practice using the wet-plate collodion process, the standard method of photography across Europe at that time. There is no record of where the studio was first located, although many studies suggest that it was actually al fresco, which could be true looking at the portraits of a wide variety of the locals. On the master’s death, his assistant Kei took over the business and changed his name to Marubi, bringing in techniques such as special effects and the retouching of negatives – together with more sophisticated cameras. The third generation of the studio, Kei’s son Gegë, was trained at the Lumière brothers' school in France in the 1920s. He pioneered the use of celluloid instead of glass plates in what was regarded as the studio’s most successful period.
In the 1970s, Gegë donated the studio's collection – some 150,000 glass negatives – to the Directorate of General Archives. He dedicated the rest of his life to working on their conservation and died in 1984. The archive is now housed at the Marubi National Museum Of Photography, which opened earlier this year in Shkodër, in a building designed by Dutch studio Casanova+Hernandez Architects.
The story of the Marubi studio started in about 1850, when the Italian Pietro Marubi emigrated to Shkodër, Albania, for political reasons.
In 1856, just two decades after photography was invented, he established a photographic studio with a camera he brought with him from Italy. The studio’s camera shutters were not to stop for more than a century. Pictured left: Kei Marubi with his wife in the studio, no date.
The archive is now housed at the Marubi National Museum Of Photography, which opened earlier this year in Shkodër. Pictured: Untitled, by Pietro Marubi, before 1881
INFORMATION
’Dynasty Marubi – a hundred years of Albanian studio photography’ is on view until 27 November. For more information, visit the Foam website
Photography: Marubi National Museum of Photography, Shkodër
ADDRESS
Foam Fotografiemuseum
Keizersgracht 609, Amsterdam
-
Like a modernist iceberg, this Krakow house has a perfectly chiselled façadeA Krakow house by Polish architecture studio UCEES unites brutalist materialities with modernist form
-
Leo Costelloe turns the kitchen into a site of fantasy and uneaseFor Frieze week, Costelloe transforms everyday domesticity into something intimate, surreal and faintly haunted at The Shop at Sadie Coles
-
Can surrealism be erotic? Yes if women can reclaim their power, says a London exhibition‘Unveiled Desires: Fetish & The Erotic in Surrealism, 1924–Today’ at London’s Richard Saltoun gallery examines the role of desire in the avant-garde movement
-
Provocative and playful, Blommers & Schumm's images sit at the intersection of fine art and photographyDutch photography duo Blommers & Schumm present 25 years of work at Foam, Amsterdam
-
Tilda Swinton: 'If Derek Jarman were with us now, he'd be making films on an iPhone'Ahead of her Amsterdam exhibition, which spotlights eight new works with Jarman, Jarmusch and more, Swinton opens up about collaboration, creativity and why the process matters more than the product
-
‘As an artist, I’ve never felt more useful than now’: Steve McQueen on his monumental film screening in AmsterdamThe film director on why now felt like the right time to screen a previously unseen 34-hour version of his 2023 documentary ‘Occupied City’, on the façade of the Rijksmuseum
-
Meet the duo using hair and photography as a medium to consider Africa and the African diaspora‘Strands & Structures’ makes its European debut at the Open Space Contemporary Art Museum in Amsterdam, exploring social and environmental issues in Accra, Ghana
-
‘The danger of AI’, photography and the future at FoamNew project ‘Photography Through the Lens of AI’ asks the big questions at Foam, Amsterdam
-
Artist Peggy Kuiper’s impactful figurative works explore her memories and emotional landscape with striking visual intensityPeggy Kuiper presents ‘The Conversation That Never Took Place’ at Reflex in Amsterdam, featuring over 25 new works (until 13 July)
-
Meredith Monk’s interdisciplinary art sets all the senses singing in Amsterdam show‘Meredith Monk: Calling’ at Oude Kerk, Amsterdam, is both a series of concerts and a deep-dive into Monk’s eclectic oeuvre
-
Heads up: art exhibitions to see in January 2024Start the year right with the Wallpaper* pick of art exhibitions to see in January 2024
