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By:
Besarte Elshani
- November 16, 2024 11:00
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Throughout the Gallery, the works of the Croatian artist Sanja Iveković are endless. Both floors are complete. They are equally meaningful and each of them has the context that it carries and breaks down to the public. The idea of her contribution to society is conveyed through works that carry messages and touch the viewer. Starting from local narratives and stories, they get a wider context for events and phenomena that preoccupy the world.
The exhibition "Women's House" is a kind of artistic profile of the Croatian Sanja Iveković. It represents more than half a century of creativity. Her figure as a pioneer of video, performance and conceptual art since the 70s comes through the works created over the years and from her archival materials as a legacy that turns into historical and political realities. It is a retrospective look, just like the exhibition unfolded in the entire space of the National Gallery of Kosovo.
Two exhibitions within one, curated by Hana Halilaj and the Croatian Ivana Bago communicate with the past and the present, questioning the future of her narratives.
Throughout the Gallery, the works of the Croatian artist Sanja Iveković are endless. Both floors are complete.
They are equally meaningful and each of them has the context that it carries and breaks down to the public.
The idea of her contribution to society is conveyed through works that carry messages and touch the viewer. Starting from local narratives and stories, they get a wider context for events and phenomena that preoccupy the world.
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"Women's House" opens the world of the activism artist
The exhibition is divided into two parts. The one on the ground floor is a selection of the author's works. Curated by Hana Halilaj, it presents a number of works from different mediums, making Iveković's figure as an artist multidimensional. "Temporaries of hope" is called what is structured as a kind of sub-exhibition of the retrospective exhibition "Women's House".
Gender issues are mainly expressed. Women's names of partisan heroines are superimposed on portraits as posters for various magazines. All of them were persecuted for anti-fascist activities and were killed at a very young age, mostly in their 20s. There are also images from her "Triangle" performance.
The black-and-white video features a series of advertisements warning against anti-fascist ideology. In one of the advertisements, black stripes are placed vertically, in the form of shutters.
Very unique, as much as they speak volumes, are five plaster casts of faces titled "House of Women" where each face presents a story that testifies to the importance of women's ongoing struggle for their rights. This is done through their dark confessions. These are works exhibited for the first time.
It is the artist's practice to develop this project of hers in every place she goes. The same was done in Kosovo in 2004.
"My interest has been and still is for abused women to be the subjects of my works. Whenever I do a big exhibition, I try to collaborate with a local shelter for abused women. In 2004, when I was invited by Erzen Shkololli to be in his exhibition, I contacted the shelter in Peja and held a workshop with the women who were there at that time. This is how I try to focus on violence against women as a topic that should always be addressed. It's happening today, it happened 20 years ago. It is a global problem", said the artist Sanja Iveković.
The curator of these works, Hana Halilaj, has said that this is a feminist reading of the artist.
"Sanja has a feminist reading in the representation of women in mass media and their objectification that is used for consumption. Often these stories are attached to the posters that are advertisements for various luxury brands, but the moment the viewer is offered and reads the stories, he meets an opposite side of the images that these posters present", she said.
According to her, the artist's works reflect, among other things, the political transition.
"The 'Moments of Hope' exhibition, which is under the umbrella of the 'Women's House' exhibition, presents about 50 years of career of the artistic practice of Sanja Ivekovic, who is known as a pioneer of video, performance and conceptual art in the former Yugoslavia. Her works also reflect the transition in the post-socialist context. In the National Gallery, we have presented a series of works, which he made since the 70s, especially among the first videos", said the curator Halilaj.
"Meeting points: Documents in the making" is the title of the sub-exhibition spread over the entire upper floor of the National Gallery of Kosovo. Curated by Croatian Ivana Bago, the exhibition brings her research from the 1949 "Documents 76-1976" exhibition in Zagreb. As was likely at the time, when the artist intended to document her personal history, she did so after nearly half a century in Pristina.
Archival materials include drawings, sketches, notes, photographs, letters, exhibition posters, books and magazines.
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"Women, the power of creation" in memories, message and imagination
The artist Sanja Iveković said that this archive is her life journey, which she has forgotten.
"There are all the personal materials, letters, photographs and everything that I have had in my life's journey that I have forgotten and the curator Ivana has brought it out and she has shown it creating this beautiful exhibition. It's a wonderful space, I especially like the colors of the walls, because usually they are white and I think that makes a nice difference", said Ivekovic.
It has been stated that it is not limited to mediums and styles.
"Sometimes people who see my retrospective for the first time think it's a collective exhibition, because I hate this art market where the artist has to have style, otherwise it won't sell. I was against it. Uses different media such as prints, photographs, drawings, performance, depending on the idea and context. I think context is very important, on which I do most of my work. Maybe this sometimes makes the work of those who see my work difficult", said Iveković, whose creativity has been shown in numerous national and international exhibitions.
It has been presented at the Paris Biennale, Sao Paulo Biennale, "Manifesta", "Documenta", Liverpool Biennale, Istanbul Biennale, Prague Biennale and others.
Her video works and video installations have been shown at numerous international video festivals (Ljubljana, Berlin, Geneva, Paris, Montreal, Los Angeles, Locarno, Tokyo, The Hague, Osnabrück, Bonn, Dessau, and others).
Her works are in the collections of many museums, including "MOMA" in New York, "Musée National d'Art Modern Center Pompidou" in Paris, Museum of Contemporary Art in Vienna and "Tate Modern" in London. Ivekovic also engages in activism and is a founder and member of several non-governmental women's organizations in Croatia.
The curator of "Meeting points: Documents in the making" said that the exhibition is structured as a visual essay where the curatorial narrative is placed on the same level as the author's works.
"The exhibition 'Meeting points: Documents in the making' is based on my research on the archive of Sanja's personal exhibitions and her work in general. It focuses on the 70s and is structured as a visual essay. So, in a way, it is a textual space through which we understand Sanja's life and work from 1968 to 1982. The exhibition consists of original artworks that are combined with archival materials such as photographs, letters, newspaper clippings, her writings where wrote her ideas for the development of the works", said the Croatian curator, Ivana Bago.
She said that an important aspect is the feminist context in the works, showing that Ivekoviqi had created the first feminist work in 1971.
"The exhibition shows her thoughts as an artist, experiments with different media, experiments with art in public space, video art, it also covers many of her travels during the 70s, as she was very active in the international art scene. When you go to the exhibition, you learn more about her work, but also the contexts on which it is placed. One of them is Yugoslav socialism in the 70s, also art institutions at that time, the world of international art and feminism," she said.
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"Women, the power of creation" in memories, message and imagination
The exhibition "House of Women" by Sanja Iveković closes the annual program of the National Gallery of Kosovo. It will remain open until January 12.
