SEE images in contemporary art

posted by sabine Ballata on 2005/08/11 10:20

[ SEE images in contemporary art ]

The austrian magazine Spike art quarterly has published a very interesting and informative article on young artists in Kosovo/a, particulary Prishtina and Peja.


First, Antje Mayer’s essay “Short Fuse, Long Breath – No Cinderella Story in Kosovo” gives a compact and non-simplified overview of the current situation and contemporary art in Kosovo. I particulary liked that he mentioned “hard facts” such as the average income (just about 1000 Euros a year), the high rate of unemployment (70 to 80 per cent, officially) and the average age of the population (half of the kosovars are under 20 years of age) and also informed about the art scene and the general feeling he had travelling the region. Since many reports and comments about the region leave out important aspects like those mentioned above, I was happy that he didn’t stick to stereotypes and clichés but tried to look at things from different angles.

I personally would have highlighted (literally: with yellow background colour!) other aspects than he did, or none at all, but that is probably just a difference in personal taste...anyway, statements like


„Anyone who is tired of life, for example, should drive through the capital, Prishtina, with a Serbian registration plate.“

are certainly true but kind of miss the point – why would anyone do that?


The „Cinderella-Story“ refers to the logo that the artists from EXIT chose, and the name for their programme at the moment is „Missing Identity“:


“Missing Identity” is therefore the name of a long-term art programme in the “relation” project involving artists from the region and covering exhibitions, symposia and workshops. As their logo, the artists of EXIT have chosen a high-heel shoe. “This sign is intended to remind people of the familiar fairytale of Cinderella”, says the artist Mehmet Behluli with a smile. “We hope that one day a Prince will come who will rediscover Kosovo and kiss it awake again. For if it hasn’t died yet it will still be alive tomorrow.”



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01 by anonymous at 2005/08/23 15:19 Bitte registrieren und/oder loggen Sie ein, um zu antworten

The austrian magazine Spike art quarterly has published a very interesting and informative article on young artists in Kosovo/a, particulary Prishtina and Peja.

thanks for pointing us (readers) out to this article, i found it highly interesting; not only because it reports about the contemporary art scene in prishtina, but also that it informs us that there IS something like that at all. the listing of places at the end of the article is quite helpful...

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imagineSEE

The imagineSEE-weblog is a space about ideas, images, (re)inventions and (re)constructions of and about the Balkans, from outside and within SEE.

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This is a part of the collage 'The Black File' by Croatian artist Sanja Ivekovic, who will be represented at documenta 12 (16/6-23/9) in Kassel this year.

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