• Nysret Salihamixhiqi: The walk (1963), Collection of the Kosova Art Gallery
Back to the future: Nysret Salihamixhiqi

Back to the future
Nysret Salihamixhiqi

Curatorial by Albert Heta

Opening: 1 June 2010, 20:00
1 June 2010 - 22 June 2010


Back to the future: Nysret Salihamixhiqi is again about showing work in another space, time and context. Back to the future (III) with Nysret Salihamixhiqi (1931) goes back to 1960ies, and Kosova.

Does any one remember Prishtina in 1963? Does any one remember Kosova in Yugoslavia in 1960ies, then still reduced to a territory inhabited by the Albanians, seen by the rest of Yugoslavia as the forever suspicious ones, the enemy that speaks the other language; a population trying to once more survive years of genocide, continuation of imperial and colonial politics dressed in red, apartheid, chauvinism, political persecution, police and military oppression, campaigns of violence; a society struggling hard to find its path to subjectivity and everything else allowed within a given system, everything else minus freedom and self-determination, which was not anymore a free word since Kosova was handed over to Yugoslavia once again in 1944 and since the collapse of the 'emancipatory' project supposedly based on the foundations of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia since its creation in 1919, and the assassination of the self-determination rights for the Albanians in the Second Session of Anti-Fascist Council of the People's Liberation of Yugoslavia held in 1944 that was, in my opinion, the end of Socialist Yugoslavia.

Only in 1965 an Albanian would become the Secretary of the Central Committee of the League of Communists of Kosova.
Back then, The Balkans - the political term that is used to eclipse
Yugoslavia (b.s.), didn't exist.

In late 1960ies Nysret Salihamixhiqi starts his deep-sea dive and his monumental (underwater) game in his paintings.

This trip is a quest to capture time through selected art works and texts and work in contextualizing the time and geography connected with the outstanding works that are in the focus of these exhibitions and an investment in creating a space for future credible reflections on works of generations of artists for the next generation of artists.

Back to the future: Nysret Salihamixhiqi is about the works prior to his great dive and about his time of painting among humans on the shore.


Back to the future: Nysret Salihamixhiqi is part of the project 'Back to the future' by Stacion - Center for Contemporary Art Prishtina. 'Back to the future: Nysret Salihamixhiqi ' is supported by Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sports of the Republic of Kosova, Directorate for Culture, Youth and Sports of the Municipality of Prishtina, Kosova Foundation for Open Society, Dardania Insurance Company, Kosova Art Gallery KTV, Rrokum, Europlakat and DZG.