“Visual Art as Resistance (1990-1999)” with bull heads in the days of violence

There are 17 works that write as many chapters of the history of this country during the years of violence and murder of Albanians. Esat Valla did not stand idly by. From the balcony of his apartment, transformed into a studio, he would become a witness and documenter of those scenes. “Visual Art as Resistance (1990-1999)” is like a testament to those years. The bull is a constant in such paintings, and its symbolism comes as powerful as all of Valla’s expressionist art.

Nationalist symbols are seen inside the broken window. It is the sign that calls for Serbs to unite, supposedly to save Serbia. And below the window is an animal skull, both figurative and abstract. The horns seem to have been left there when the window was broken. The painting is dominated by red and black.

It was signed in 1998 and is titled “The Demolition of the Technical Faculty.” It is part of Esat Valla’s cycle of works through which he reveals how, as a witness during times of repression, he also became a documenter through his artistic expression – painting. 

“Visual Art as Resistance (1990-1999)” is the title of Esat Valla’s personal exhibition, which opened on Wednesday evening at the “Open Art” gallery in Pristina. 17 works illustrate Valla’s work during Kosovo’s most difficult decade. The Serbian government had excluded Albanians from institutional life, from enterprises, most schools and the premises of the University of Pristina. Albanians lived as foreigners in Kosovo, while the Serbian minority exercised violent measures through the police and the army. 

“Demolition of the Technical Faculty” represents Serbia's aggression in Kosovo. This spirit is also present in Valla's other works created in the 90s. Locked in his apartment, the painter, born in 1944 in Gjakova, was documenting the time in which he lived. He had chosen to round out his artistic expressions with animal figures. The violence was animalistic. That's how it comes. They are bull heads or fossils of heads that are pouncing and others that are suffering. The bull's head is a constant in the works of this cycle, but it has the power to be read differently.

Albanian protests and demonstrations against systematic violence were suppressed through the police and military machinery. The tires of this machinery come as a symbol of violence in the paintings where red and black provide a common denominator. Even spring where everything sprouts and revives is suppressed through tires. Valla, through paintings such as “Attack of the Headless” depicts violence, fear and inhumane behavior.

also Culture 1 months ago "Resistance in Kosovo..." browses the underground press between ideology and freedom

In the exhibition curated by Zeni Ballazhin, the dramas of the '90s appear tragic. The compositions have numerous symbolisms. The brutality of that time comes in heavy colors, while the painter has also found a place for hope in his paintings. The very fact that the enemy is presented as an empty head or a fossil of a bull's head, shows that it was the end of a period when oppression kept increasing and exploded with the war of 1998-1999. 

"In the '90s, it was the time of apartheid. That abnormal situation affects everyone. We painters are a little more sensitive and I have expressed this in my paintings. I have recorded that situation 100 percent. We were surrounded by military machinery with tires and skulls. I have symbolically presented the skulls, the bulls. I have presented the enemy in that way. Then the protests that they have suppressed. We have been suppressed. We have a crushed spring with tire marks in one of the works," said Valla, who after the School of Art in Peja had studied at the Academy of Figurative Arts in Belgrade in the class of Professor Zoran Petrovic. 

He had also completed his master's degree with the same professor. Valla said that his symbolism was to use animals to represent characters, a person or a people, and the pressure of a violent mass. 

"They are the empty heads of bulls. It is not a living bull but only a bull fossil. I think I have achieved what I wanted to bring out during that period. It has been quite difficult. I have been locked up and we have not gone out much. It is normal that we have been in danger. I have turned a balcony of the apartment into a studio and I have done these works", said university professor of painting Esat Valla. 

“The General of the Dead Army” is also a bull’s head. In addition to the colors of the painting, both realistic and abstract, he has also played with the title by using the name of one of the most famous Albanian literary works in the world, that of Ismail Kadare. While in Kadare’s “The General...”, the military superior returns to collect the remains of soldiers killed in Albania, in Valla’s painting he is a fossil that personifies violence. 

also Culture 5 months ago The colors of local artists in composition with the prize game

"This is the period of my rebellion. I was a painter and a different person. I rebelled by looking at the time," Valla said.  

Curator Zeni Ballazhi has said that a special characteristic today may be precisely the period of the '90s of Esat Valla. According to him, 25 years after the war we are dealing with a new generation of artists who can take something from a period they did not experience. 

"This experience is quite evident in a cycle of his works selected in this exhibition. Here we have made a selection that I think is the selection that most adequately presents him on this topic or this concept," said Ballazhi.

In this case, he added that it is a period when Kosovo has gone through a very difficult phase.

"If we stop at each work, we see that it has its own story. A part of a painting says quite clearly that he used the marks left by the regime in the Faculty for paintings. His character in this case is the bull. Through the bull, the painful history is depicted. Red dominates in the works. The gallery is colored with red and black, which are dominant in these paintings," said Ballazhi.

also Culture 1 j. before The treasury of Kosovo's art as a dialogue of times and revival together with the Gallery

He believes that such exhibitions should be more frequent in Kosovo, as there are many good artists of the first and second generation who present precisely these themes, these resistances of that time through works of art. Valla's exhibition, in more ideal circumstances, would open on an anniversary of Kosovo's liberation and also in a state institution of visual art, since these institutions are also spaces of memory and not just with the aim of chasing trends. Comprehensive content would be more ideal than only works that present contexts up to thousands of kilometers away from Kosovo and even works for which the author is able to say that sometimes he does not know how to explain his paintings. But Valla's exhibition speaks volumes even in the "Open Art" gallery. His creativity has that power not only because of the drama it presents, but also because of his mastery.