Fine arts in Kosova have been spread from experiments and great volte-faces on the world's art scene. Kosova's fine arts, which lack a long tradition - there were only two pioneer generations of modern artists until recently1, were dominated by self-content and nonconflictual academism. The first generations of Kosovar artists (with the exception of Xhevdet Xhafa, who remained faithful to his authentic, high-quality formless art, even though it appeared here somewhat late) chose to stick to the trodden paths of figuration, concrete representation, symbolisation or stylisation of the "social reality" and to the spirit of the times, always guided by the social environment's dominant taste. No great experiments with techniques and genres were undertaken. Muslim Mulliqi's work is illustrative of this. In his work as well as in that by best representatives of Kosova's school (Gjelosh Gjokaj, Rexhep Æavdarbasha, Agim Salihu, as well as others) themes and ideas are always clearly connected with time and space. These artists aim their work to be representative of particular culture, they search for something that should be illustrative of the authentic Kosovar and Albanian fine arts. Even though their styles are different and highly individualised, it is interesting to note their thematic closeness: the circles of Albanian Legends, collective as traditional Albanian Towers (Kulla), cursed Mountains and Walls that divide the Albanians, Cages, etc. the works of Muslim Mulliqi in particular clearly express this urge to "paint" the spiritual and ideological pulsation of time, to "record" visually the ups and downs of national aspirations. There is a significant overlap between the themes he espoused during the stages of his development with the phases of Kosova's cultural and political development; actually, Mulliqi's art can be taken as a kind of their visualisation. Thus, in the 1950's and 1960's (Rankovic's era) Mulliqi began to paint in the manner of cruel social-realism, which was artistically very powerful but was permeated by the 1970's when Kosova was granted a high level of autonomy with the status and powers close to that of a state, Mulliqi first produced a series of the Albanian towers symbolising resistance, the feeling of rootedness, only to change the theme and begin to paint a cycle of blue skies, stressing the longing for the elevation of collective aspirations likened to the flight of Icarus. Only in his last phase, in the 1980's and 1990's, when the process of abolition of Kosova's autonomy was initiated and brought to an end, did the artist suffer a kind of a break-down of motivation. However, he made a come-back by returning to pure art and working on intimate and melancholic paintings: simple landscapes and portraits. These are artistically very powerful reminding of "eternity" and of incomparable lustre of Faiyum"s encaustics.
In any case, until the 1980's the fine arts in Kosova were flourishing whilst academism represented the peak of their development. Nearly all prominent artists had established themselves as professors with their own studios and a possibilities to exhibit their work. The privileges they enjoyed were not such as to arouse envy. Kosova was a poor region, lacking the public that genuinely appreciated art.
After 1981 the Kosovar institutional academism faced an imposed crises which was to become disastrous in the 1990's. The escalation of inter-ethnic and political conflicts ruined the previous cultural system. In the wake of the violent annexation of Kosova (1989-1991) the Albanians were "cleansed" from the educational and cultural institutions (Art Gallery in Prishtina, the Faculty of Arts, cultural centres, and a range of institutions which organised the cultural life, etc.), which were then placed under the total control of Serbs nationalists. The Albanians fine arts was thus either practically extinguished or significantly marginalised.
The Albanian art scene was in a state of shock and depression for the next two years. Only in 1993 there emerged new alternative forms of organising the artistic life2, in pace with the rhythm of the comprehensive self-organisation of the Albanian society. Restaurants, coffee-shops and other independent Albanian institutions took the role of galleries. This art of resistance3, though of varying violence, also began to question the meaning of art by adopting a critical attitude towards the art of the "father" and their happy, unconflictual academism.
By the end of the 1980's there appeared the third generation of artists4. They had moved away from academism, mainly opted against "realism" in painting, while embracing abstract arts and experimentation. This generation reacted against the horror surrounding them. This flight from a dreadful reality is reminiscent of the conclusion Paul Klee drew in a similar historical context a half a century ago when he had said: "The more dreadful the reality is, the more abstract does art become".
The third generation of Kosovar artists (some of whom are more explicit, while others are hesitant) set out on a search for new forms of expression. those bravest ones mastered the "destructive" and "de-constructivist" creative expression of the new post-modern art, whose credo can be paradoxically called -creative nihilism.
This difference between academism and anti-academism, as one of a possible general qualifications of this art, is stressed for the sake of contrasting the phenomenon. This frame of reference enables us to understand this art in the context of the given situation art finds itself in. In fact, there are two frames of reference: one has to do with the local situation and artistic trends, in comparison with which this art is rather provocative; the other has to do with the trends in the world, in relation to which its provocation appear harmless. But, if this frame of reference is reduced only to its provocative aspect rather than focusing on the value of the project, than its descriptive dimension and that which concerns value can be mixed up. This is particularly conspicuous at the local level where this art is perceived as "nihilistic" and "valueless". However, when i compare the previous and the current alternative arts I am not insisting on the aspect which has do this value. This provocative art is a priori neither better nor worse than the previous art; first and foremost, it is completely different, and as such it requires different sensibility and, therefore, a different approach as well.
Regarding the second frame of reference and its relation to the current trends in the world, I asked the following question when the "Pêrtej" exhibition was being conceptualised: "Is the emergence of the generation of young and "angry" Kosovar artists only a shock of local importance? Or, can they, as authentic destroyers of conventions, establish wider communication with modern artistic trends in the world?" I did not try to give a direct answer to this question. I asked the question in order to provoke the visitors of the exhibition.
Maksut Vezgishi's exhibition, held at "Vatra" Café Gallery in Prizren (9-23 february 1993), heralded the emergence of the new Kosovar alternative art. It took place in a marginal space out of reach of the professional audience. It passed almost unnoticed without the critical appraisal it deserved. One of the reasons why art critics and artists did not pay attention to Vezgishi is, most likely, because he is an architect by training, who has also done work in theatre (as director, scenographer, costume designer, etc.). Only few were aware at the time that he also does fine arts, alongside furniture and graphic design. His theatre projects were more successful even though he mainly worked with amateur groups from Prizren.5 He was unlucky or, perhaps, he was prevented from working on original projects with professional theatre groups.6 In 1990, Vezgishi's project entitled "The Divine Proportions" was awarded the first prize at the last Yugoslav Festival of amateur Theatres.7
The theme of Vezgishi's exhibition at the "Vatra" Gallery focused on the new icon, with an iconoclastic tendency for a return to the symbol and to the pure picturesque, as a vision of eternity in this world. What distinguishes Vezgishi's art is not only the spirit of universality and timelessness, but also the tendency to combine various artistic mediums in one project. There is an inclination in Vezgishi's work to transcend the painting, to shift it towards other mediums of expression, always with an inclination to ontologise the picturesque in all the dimensions in which it appears, both in the formal aspects of the scene and in the reflection/image of the event. This means that Vezgishi's performances are not concerned with the stage effect and the theatrics as such, or with possible illustrative and demonstrative functions of specific figurative ideas1 on the contrary, he sees a performance as an extension of the painting, its outpouring into space, just as a painting itself is an extension of ideal spiritual relations. However, Vezgishi was not able to fully realise these transcending extensions and shifts as he had envisioned them; this ideas were neither understood nor did they elicit support. On the whole, his art seems to be much too ambitious to be approved of and accepted, and is even less successful in gaining institutional support in the pour region as is Kosova where the majority deem that there are much more pressing needs to be met and where the where the government has no interest in "useless" art, particularly because the aims of such art are even more sublime.
Sokol Beqiri's exhibition at the "Intermedia" studio in Prishtina (March 1995) represented the second important stage in the emergence of the new art in Kosova. Beqiri graduated in Graphics at Prishtina's Academy of fine Arts and completed his postgraduate studies at the academy in Ljubljana. His works were shown in several renowned exhibitions (in the Ljubljana and Zagreb biennials of graphics) and he had his own exhibition in Frankfurt am Main in 1994 (Palais Jalta). His vocation in graphics is abstract expressionism reduced to the relations between white and black. Meanwhile, Beqiri worked with other techniques, bravely searching for transcendent moment in the approach, bordering on art and non-art, painting and non-painting, artefact and non-artefact, living and non-living, life and death, beauty and kitsch. The "Intermedia" exhibition, set up in the relatively small space in the attic, offered an interesting intersection of Beqiri's deconstructivist research. The exhibition was conceptualised as dense reminiscence of that which can be called the roaring gallop of artistic avantgardes of the 20th century, but presented as their mockery and parody.8 Parody was conspicuous at his exhibition in the restaurant "The Inn of two Roberts" (Hani i Dy Robertêve), on April 1997, where alongside the graphics and the paintings which were deliberately provocative, "without taste", "ugly", done in randomly rough and incompatible colours, he also exhibited two big panels of photo-wallpaper with idyllic landscapes as a motif, but which the artist had painted over with wax of different colours so that nothing remained of their "decorative", "beautifying" function, that clearly artificial expression of deceptive taste, surrogate consumption, instant beauty and kitsch".9 This distance, which is irony and parody at the same time, is also discernible in the treatment and in the change of functions of ethnographic objects, such as windows, doors, barrels... being old and beautiful, these ethnographic items usually impose an un-reflected idolatrous and idolising attitude the tradition of the "folk" genius. But, with his interventions on these items, the artist suddenly points, by using artistic means only, to their dangerous disfiguration and degeneration: to wooden barrels and churns the artist added tiny cones thus giving them a shape of a kind of "ethno-bombs", only to cover them with a deceptive variety of colours, to resemble candy, and to look like the kitsch that surrounds us, thus order to portraying "harmless" aggression, which caused such mass destruction in the case of Bosnia.
The third important step for the emergence of the alternative art in Kosova are two successive exhibitions of Mehmet Behluli in Prishtina in January and March 1997 (Hani i Dy Robertêve and the "Dodona" Gallery). While the first exhibition featured his works which represent the first three stages of his artistic research, 10 in the "Dodona" Gallery he presented the exhibition/installation, a complete cycle of works which were mostly created especially for this space. Leaving behind the phase of monochrome abstraction from the early 1990's when he was a post-graduate in Sarajevo, with his new work Behluli arrives at a conceptual crossroads between configuration reduced to innocent images as if done by a "child" on the one hand, and installations and objects representing the spatial adaptation of ideas for painting, on the other hand. Yet, in both of two variants, he preserves the basic monochromatic approach in the creation of visions. He works with one dominant colour (white and black colour, or the combination of them, take on this role in his last works) which he uses in his subtle investigation of inner movements and pulsation of facture, compositional shapes, clash of tones, etc. Meanwhile, the monochromy is achieved in the installations by means of melting tar upon objects used in everyday life, mainly old and discarded things, like bags, boxes, books that are no longer in "fashion", chairs, windows, doors, closets, old mirrors and clocks, hats, ropes, etc, the entire range of transient things which have been burnt or destroyed not only by the passage of time and unstoppable entropy, but also because of mad beliefs, a desire to archieve ideological fantasies, unrealisable utopias. The tar which floods the world turns into a vision (metaphor is rather obvious) of the catastrophic reality of Sarajevo for example, where the artist lived until the out-break of the war, and where such spaces, rooms, piles of burned books and libraries really exist. The artist is shocked with and protests against the consequences of totalitarian ideologies, calling upon us to be cautious, not to be fooled with bogus material goods.
On the whole the alternative art in Kosova, displayed at the exhibition Pêrtej 11 with the works by three artists (including composer Ilir Bajri), who have their individualised visions and approaches, reveals and political reality which is falling into pieces before our very eyes. Such attitudes also concern the art, which remains intact, within the iron frames of self-deceitful indifference and a worldview which is naive and illusory since it fails to see the open pit, the civilisational abyss, the absurd and the threat of general entropy.
June-August, 1997
1. The cultivation of fine arts with modern expression in Kosova began only after the The Second World War as a derivative of the Yugoslav socialist educational and cultural system. the art school in Peja sowed the seeds of fine arts, whilst best and most determined students continued their studies at the fine arts academies in Belgrade, Zagreb, Ljubljana and later in Sarajevo. In the late 1960's this generation of Kosovar artists founded the Fine Arts Department at the Teacher's College, and then the academy (and the faculty) of fine arts in Prishtina. Considering that the small number of active artists, the lack of space for exhibitions as well as the absence of demanding art critics and public, the concentration of quality on the Kosovar art scene was unexpectedly high from the very beginning. the most prominent artists from the first generation of artists are as follows: Muslim Mulliqi (1934), Gjelosh Gjokaj (1933), Nusret Salihamixhiq (1931), Xhevdet Xhafa (1935), Rexhep Ferri (1937), Tahir Emra (1938), Adem Kastrati (1930) and Anton Gllasniqi (1938). The doyens of the applied art in Kosova also belong to this generation: Matej Rodiqi (1929), Augsh Beqiri (1932) and Nuredin loxha (1935-1992).With this spiritual profile and the method of work, the second generation of artists who were born between 1940 and 1955 is very close to this group. The most important artist in this generation is the doyen of sculpture, Agim Æavdarbasha (1944), whereas important and original cycles have been produced by Daut Berisha (1941), Isak Asllani (1945), Mikel Gjokaj (1946), Nebih Muriqi (1943), Hysni Krasniqi (1942), Fatmir Krypa (1942), Agim Salihu (1951) and Ymer Shaqiri (1955), The most prominent names in the applied arts are Violeta Xhaferi (1947), Shyqri Nimani (1941) and Afrim Spahiu (1951).The artists of other nationalities from Kosova, with whom the Albanian artists co-operated for a long time and who exerted their influence, ought to be mentioned here as well. these are: Vlada Radovic (1901-1988), Hilmija Catovic (1933), Trajko Stojanovic (1934), Svetozar Arsic - Basara (1933), Stevan Cukic (1936) and Zoran Jovanovic-Dobrotin (1942).