UN Radio in Kosovo
Can you live from art?
By Birol Urcan
Hello
and welcome ... this is UNMIK ON AIR program with ....
The
question that we will raise in this UNMIK ON AIR program is - can someone in
Kosovo live only from art? More exactly, from visual art.
This
question has been raised many times, and the answer, according to the majority
of artists, is simply that they cannot live from art.
That
stance was confirmed when UNMIK ON AIR visited a sculptor, Ismey Jonuzi, a
painter Eshref Qahili and a photographer Fahredin Spahiu all from Pristina.
Actuallity:
Ismet
Today it’s difficult not only to live but even to imagine living
from art in Kosovo. This question is raised even in developed countries of
western world. Like, for example, in Germany, where you have very good artists
there that are not famous and they cannot live from art.
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Actuallity:
Eshref
The reason that you cannot live from art in Kosovo is that
artworks are usually for the elite of the nation, unfortunately in Kosovo there
is very few of them who can be considered as elite. On the other hand, even
this existing elite is living mainly in miserable conditions and do not have
money to invest in art.
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Actuallity:
I think that you cannot live from art in Kosovo. As far as I know,
none of my colleagues who deal with creative activities can live from art. Now
the reasons are mainly known, firstly it’s low level of living standard, as
well as low level of general culture concerning artwork.
The
business of visual art seems not to be an optimistic one. But the question
whether one can live from art could be seen in a different picture in some
other regions in Kosovo, in Pec/Peja, for example. More precisely, on the second
floor of the department store of this town.
Isa
Alimusaj is a painter with more than 30 years of experience in the business of art,
and he was living for a long time in Croatian coast. He returned back to
Pec/Peja in mid 90’s and opened the Art Gallery Europa.
Actuallity
Isa Alimusaj
You can live from art, but it is very important to be prepared for
this. Living from art depends on various factors. You need, say, a space, and
that space has to be somewhere where people can see it ... and than something
goes around. Than you have many factors that are related to the professional
and creative ability. For example you have artists that do not now how to do a
portrait, or landscape or watercolor painting.
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Actuallity:
These artists cannot expect their work to be sold and they are
left without money, which is very common here. But if the artist is prepared to
do his work based on his fantasy, to have it’s own signature or style … like
for example I have my own style and I respect it, but on the other hand I also
know how to do a portrait, landscape or watercolor painting, etc. and there you
have the commercial effect ... there is a profit.
Isa
is evidently successful in his work. But, particularly one kind of artistic
work brings him the biggest commercial profit – painting portraits.
Actuallity
Isa Alimusaj
Yes, portraits I do on orders. More or less there are various
needs, especially after the war there were many martyrs, and their families
ordered their portraits. I do paint portraits for a very long time: I started
it when I was a student. You have a certain commercial benefit from portraits
if you do it in a proper way. If not, than there is no money in that.
Although
he makes significant profit, Isa doesn’t consider the work in At Gllery Evropa
as his priority He believes that his priority is teaching students lessons of
anatomy in the Art Academy in Pristina.
Actuallity
Isa Alimusaj
As a child I decided to deal with visual arts. Since than I had a
vision about my future job, and I always thought about myself as being a
painter. How much did I achieve of this, it’s a question, but I think I worked
a lot. Not to mention numbers, but I think that total of my works can be
counted with 4 zeros. But you cannot count the artistic value with numbers.
Safet
Gwrxhaliu is an economy expert that works in the Kosovo Chamber of Commerce.
However, and he had a good experience working in one Art Auction House in
Germany.
According
to him, in modern art terminology there are three types of artists - spiritual,
commercial spiritual and commercial ones.
Actuallity
As far as Kosovar reality concerns, it is true that we are going
through a deep economic crisis. The low art values are dominant for a long
time. But nevertheless, the Kosovars have a certain amount of love for art, and
I think that an artist that has all three characteristics mentioned, in one way
or another, can exist and live from art in Kosovo
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for example, you can go through streets of Pristina and you will
find lot of cigarette sellers, various card or CD or music tape sellers. But
you cannot find a single artist that does paint portraits, or portraits form
pictures, or anything similar that can help the existence in a pretty
accommodating way to an artist.
Nevertheless,
the final answer to the question ‘can you live from art’ cannot be given in
five minutes. And probably not even a longer time slot would suffice. However,
we decided to end this story with a quote from Pristina professor Isa Alimusaj:
Actuallity
I am a painter and I decided to do this for whole my life. And
everything that I do is in favor of painting. When I do something commercially
useful, again it is in favor of painting. That means everything for painting.
That’s all for today, thanks for listening to our survey on the
business of art here in Kosovo.
We’ll have more for you tomorrow, from the studio of UNMiK Radio.
Good day