Gjergj Luca in Shkodra to remember the anti -communist rebellion of art, Agim Rada, today on his birthday

By Albert Vataj

On a marked day, May 24, the birthday of Agim Rada, one of the most prominent sculptors of Albanian art, the city of Shkodra, this fort of memory and resistance, welcomed the courageous entrepreneur and his loyal friend, Gjergj Luca. It was a symbolic return, a silent and deep homage to the place that resembles Rada’s soul. Shkodra, the cradle of citizenship, the capital of Albanian culture, the place where art and resistance were born as twins of a painful but sacred time.

In front of the Cathedral of Shkodra, one of the most significant temples of anti -communist faith and resistance, Luca stops in the face of one of Rada’s masterpieces. In that silent bronze, sculpted with the sense of the past that is not forgotten and the weight of a non -dying ideal, he remembers his friend, a rebellious artist, a free spirit, a creator who never agreed to submit.

« Today is the day of the birth of Agim Rada, the anti -communist rebel who never surrendered to his beliefs. Nostalgia for the pure artist to naivety, who was born a virgin and passed away without a year old. – writes Luca, in a dedication that sounds like a poem about the sculpture melted into eternity.

Agim Rada, born on May 24, 1953 in Tirana, was more than a sculptor, it was a memory that did not forget, a voice that did not extinguish and a hand that modeled not only bronze but also national conscience. By Marin Barleti to Petro Marko, from Onufri to Gjergj Elez Alia, his work is not merely representation, but the spirit of the figures who breathed Albania.

One of his most special work is undoubtedly the bust of Mit’hat Frasheri, whom Rada has described with a rare artistic sensitivity: « I dressed in an inner smile, with a papal, as if it were part of the Frashëri brothers. His forehead, an open book, eyes – depths talking.

He never forgot the words of Christ: « Let them do whatever they want, that one day will come that everything will go to its place. » And for Rada, the land of justice was art. He created eternity, not for fashion or for politics, but to conceive the dignity of the nation in its most sublime form, monumental art.

His works did not bow to the transitional powers. He himself claimed: « I have never made politicized art. I have only modeled figures who have stood the time, not the temporary who are at the top and tomorrow in oblivion. »

Agim Rada died on July 11, 2023, at the age of 70, but he was never separated from the nation he loved and he loved it. In his hand, history, aesthetics and sacrifice joined, as in a sketch that never ends.

On this May 24, Gjergj Luca remembered not only his friend but also the mission he left behind. Focusing in Shkodra, he made an act that goes beyond a visit, made a silent oath to prevent figures like Agim Rada being covered by oblivion. In an era that often forgets quickly, memory is an act of rebellion, and art rebels like Rada live in this illuminated memory.