National Art Gallery, Tirana, Albania

National Art Gallery, Tirana ( ) - darkometer rating : (2) - ---------------- UPDATE April 2022: the gallery is currently closed, fenced in and apparently undergoing some sort of conversion. --------------- As the name spells it out: it's an art gallery. Now, such institutions don't feature a lot on these pages, but this one had to be included for its fantastic collection of socialist realism paintings – and for some surprising hidden gems in the back yard. > More background info > What there is to see > Location > Access and costs > Time required > Combinations with other dark destinations > Combinations with non-dark destinations > Photos More background info: Tirana 's National Art Gallery, or "Galeria Kombëtare e Arteve" in Albanian, used to be a true gem even for those dark tourists not normally particularly fussed about art in general. What made it so good was the fact that it's a brilliant repository of socialist realism art . Many titles speak for themselves, such as "Oil Drill Man", "Partisan Ambush", "Going to Work", "Proclamation of the Republic", or "Working Girls" (and they mean literally! NOT it in the western euphemistic sense as code for 'prostitute'). But my absolute favourite title was: "Everywhere we are at the forefront"! What level of unabashed propaganda lying! Fabulous OTTness. One artist apparently got a little too real in this game: A painting by Edison Gjergo entitled "The epic of the morning's stars" from 1971 was later criticized as "displaying a pessimistic outlook" on life, blacklisted and subsequently banned from the exhibition. The artist himself was even arrested and put in prison in 1974.