Painter and scenographer Rexhep Aliaj passed away

Albanian painter and scenographer, Rexhep Aliaj, has passed away. The sad news was announced by his brother, Robert Aliaj through a post on Facebook.

"When your parents die, it is said that you have lost the past.
When your spouse dies, you lose the present.
I dare not write about children. When a sibling dies, you have lost a part of the past, present and future.
They say that love never dies, and so, perhaps, even loved ones do not die?
You rest in peace my brother Rexhep Aliaj in these times of cholera where we are forced to keep the bitterness inside us like a parasite entangled in the core of the soul. We will continue, but we will never be the same again. "

Rexhep Aliaj was one of the first scenographers in the Albanian Radio Television, where he worked for the creation of scenography for over 16 Song Festivals, before the '90s. In a 2013 interview with Sot.com, he stated that despite his contribution to scenography and painting, it was not the form he wanted to express.

"Since the time of socialism, my painting was criticized and could not enter the exhibition for the phenomenon of modern art, expressionism. The same thing existed in the field of scenography, although I am one of the first scenographers of ART, where for years I worked to create the foundations of that new scenography for our country. Yet my ideas were evident that they were for a more evolved art, not for the socialist realism that was being pursued then. "Through the art of socialist realism, I saw pictures, but not art in content."

In the early 1990s, he left for Athens, where he gained "at the same time freedom for creativity." During his creativity, Aliaj realized several cycles of works, which were presented in exhibitions in Albania.