Existential issues define the works of the "Artists of Tomorrow" finalists

The center for contemporary art "Stacion", which operates in what used to be the space of the boxing club "Prishtina", has opened the artistic horizons of three new names on the artistic scene. This year's artistic journey with "Tomorrow's Artists" is just one step before the finalization - the announcement of the winner. The evaluation for the latter has already reached three people. There were a total of ten artists in the competition

Pristina, November 2 - Three of the ten artists competing for the "Artists of Tomorrow" award are potential winners of this year's edition. Mimoza Sahiti, Luiza Thaqi and Dion Zeqiri speak in artistic language at the center for contemporary art "Stacion" in a joint exhibition. Each work is a unique chapter, while the whole is an image for the new generation of artists. 

"Station", which operates in what used to be the space of the "Prishtina" boxing club, has opened the artistic horizons of three new names on the artistic scene. This year's artistic journey with "Tomorrow's Artists" is just one step before the finalization - the announcement of the winner. The evaluation for the latter has already reached three people. There were a total of ten artists in the competition. 

According to the jury, the third with their work offer bold and necessary provocations that speak to our common complexity. 

"How sad, how lovely" are the names of the works of the artist Mimoza Sahiti. It is a kind of exhibition within the exhibition with the five-part work. 

The work explores human identity and is like a kind of parallel between the outer and inner world. It deals with man's struggle with himself and with what surrounds him. One oil on canvas painting features the image of a cowboy-like man. The next painting next to it defines and makes his identity clear, but there the head is a skull holding two weapons. One is directed towards oneself, the other towards others. 

Another sequence of the work is the installed door on which is hung the jacket embroidered with red pen with the words "How sad, how lovely". The work comes as a repetition of what the protagonist wears in two paintings. 

The author of the work, Mimoza Sahiti, said that the inspiration for her work was Connie Converse's album with the same title as her work. 

"It all started with a 1950 album by Connie Converse who started singing and playing guitar before Bob Dylan. The album is called 'How sad, how lovely' and the whole exhibition is connected with it. The two cowboy paintings were done a year ago, then I bought this jacket three months ago in a 'second hand' and when I saw the cowboy painting I saw the similar jacket that I made. "The whole spirit of 'How sad, how lovely' and the text in the song is related to the idea of ​​the external life with the internal one", said Sahiti. 

Her work stops with the drawing where the character points the gun towards the stars, rendering meaningless, in a way, his internal and external struggle. He targets the stars, or maybe they emanate from his weapon. 

Sahiti said that the works also represent wounds, suffering in life and the struggle for survival.  

"The idea was to show the journey, the struggle for life, fitting into a circle and the attempts to find a place where you fit. The second painting has one gun pointed at himself and another pointed at the outside world. It is the struggle that man has all the time with himself and with the outside world about who I am and what I am wanting, it is related to identity and human life. It is related to survival and how we deal with ourselves", said the author of the work "How sad, how lovely". 
Luiza Thaqi deals with the impact of society on ecology. It does this by touching on concepts such as land ownership, the way it is treated. With her work "Place directed by the earth" she presents the treatment of a minimalist space in a triangular shape surrounded by two objects as well as the one that once served as a boxing club. Together with the work, a documentary video of nearly ten minutes is exhibited that explains the entire work process, including the processing of the soil and analysis results. 

"As a process, it started after the announcement of the three finalists, one of whom was myself. The idea I proposed was the treatment of lands and the idea of ​​owning the land. Once a land is owned, how is it treated, is it just an asset or is its use showing a social sustainability. My work has an ecological approach, this was the idea with which I applied while talking with the team that organizes this award, I managed to identify this space", said the author of this work, Luiza Thaqi. 

He said that the space was limited due to the constructions around it, as well as the access there. He appreciated the work as a metaphor for the treatment of lands. 

"I didn't want to use a land to build something, but the idea was to build the space and renew it in cooperation with the land. Then I undertook to do a research where the analyzes of the soil and vegetation and the previous condition were shown. Based on the information I received during the research process, I adapted the artistic intervention I made for this space. During the work process, other levels have emerged that show the state and practice of society, how we treat land and ownership, for them the intervention is minimal," said Thaqi. 

The jury for this work wrote that there "the artist highlights issues related to the treatment of land, property, public property, and the separation of people from nature with the claim of ownership". 
The jury was composed of German artist, co-founder and editor of "e-flux" Julieta Aranda, artist and director of the private cultural center "Akvarijus" in North Mitrovica, Miljana Dungjerin, sociology and associate professor at the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Pristina, Vjollca Krasniqi, Turk Alper Turan - curator and writer as well as artist and curator Lulzim Zeqiri.

Three of them, Aranda, Dungjerin and Turan, were also on the jury of the previous edition. 
Another special narrative was the work "Oh, mindgut" by Dion Zeqiri, which includes two parts of it. The first is the brain-shaped gypsum sculpture, but with more pronounced circular shapes that leave room to perceive other images. This brain seems to come out of the wall. 

"The sculpture serves as a symbolic representation of two fundamental, but often opposing forces in the human experience: intellect and intuition," the jury's assessment of this work reads. It also includes another part, the audio instillation of over 24 minutes that illustrates a kind of urban everyday life. Artist Dion Zeqiri has been reluctant to talk about his work. 

"Artists of tomorrow" as an event is a kind of overview of the creativity of young artists. In essence, it is familiarity with the international scene. This is the reward for the first prize - a two-month artistic residency in New York. 

Albert Heta, leader of the contemporary art center "Station" that organizes the "Artists of Tomorrow" competition, said that this award shows the importance of its existence and that it always offers space for experimentation and further development. 

"The cooperation of young artists with institutions that have created an experience, have some credibility, is always considered necessary and necessary because in the early stages of development, scenes that do not have support, know how to deviate. From the dominant tendencies to conform to the expectations of others, you often know how to shorten your opportunity to be more critical in order to adapt more. We always try to offer a free space", he said. 

He considered the work of the artists to be exceptional and emphasized that the participating artists must have a background in the field of art. 

"The award is not designed for artists who are just starting out. There must have been activity in the past three years, three works, exhibitions in other institutions, in the end the jury has dealt with ten applications in the narrow circle, some of them passed to the last circle. A total of five artists were treated by the jury a little longer, in the end these finalists came as a consensus of the jury's decision", said Heta. 

The exhibition with the works of the three artists will remain open for a month, while this year's winner of "Tomorrow's Artists" will be announced on December 7.