Endi Poskovic
Stark black ink of swirls and red smoky twirls from colorful volcanos against yellow sky, variegated in a combination that brings to mind wild thoughts – is just one of the works of Endi Poskovic on display in artBahrain online gallery from 1 November to 31 December 2012.
Endi Poskovic prints embrace dazzling palettes, bold patterns and repeated forms with such abandon that exerts hypnotic power – a testament of the artist’s mastery in woodcut.
In his statement, Poskovic stated, “the amalgam of diverse imagery and visual narratives imply accounts from personal and social histories and reference themes of cultural and environmental shifts, migration and alienation that are at once magnificent and dystopian.”
Poskovic manipulates the content and subject matter to question constructs of pictorial identity and the creative process of his artistic methodology in a playful dance that is surrealistic as it is expressive.
The painstaking craftsmanship which he employs are strategies of classic ukiyo-e prints and visual representation merged with text as practiced in Eastern European propaganda posters. Given the combination of techniques, echoes of Pop-Surrealist and the Op-art visual assault prevailing in his works – all serve as an art-historical reference – made powerful and potent by the saturated colors that leap from the walls and dramatically alter the emotional temperature of every art work.
Surreal, dramatic, brilliantly-hued and full of imagery, Endi Poskovic woodcuts simultaneously rekindle folklorist tradition in a nostalgic visual language, enveloping viewers in its fantastical, mythical environment.
As one of the well-known printmakers of the United States today, Endi Poskovic continues to shape the new generation in the exploration of the foundations of print. He has been teaching at the University of Michigan where he is Professor in the School of Art and Design and Associate Faculty in the University of Michigan Center for Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies and the Center for European Studies since 2008. - JOE KENNETH SCHWARZ
About the artist
Born in Sarajevo, Endi Poskovic studied music, graphic design and art from an early age and during the 1980s performed traditional music of the Balkans at music festivals throughout Europe and the Middle East. Upon completing his B.F.A. at the University of Sarajevo Academy of Fine Arts, Poskovic studied Nynorsk language and culture in Norway for an entire year on Norwegian Government sponsored Minnefondet Scholarship. From Norway, Poskovic moved to the United States to study at the State University of New York at Buffalo, where he earned his M.F.A.
Poskovic has received fellowships and grants from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, John D. Rockefeller Foundation-Bellagio Center, Pollock-Krasner Foundation; MacDowell Colony; Camargo Foundation, France; Open Studio, Canada, Indiana Arts Commission; Art Matters Foundation; New York State Arts Council, Durfee Foundation, Flemish Ministry of Culture-Frans Masereel Centrum, Belgium, Bemis Center for Contemporary Art, the McColl Center for Visual Arts; Can Serrat International Art Centre, Spain, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Kala Art Institute, Valparaiso Foundation, Spain, Norwegian Government as well as research grants from the University of Michigan OVPR, Confucius Institute, Center for Japanese Studies and Weiser Center for Emerging Democracies.
Widely exhibited, Poskovic has represented the United States at major international exhibitions for prints, including the Taichung International Biennial, Taiwan; Krakow International Triennial, Poland; La Biennale Internationale d’Estampe Contemporaine de Trois-Rivières, Canada; Egyptian International Triennial; Deutsche Internationale Grafik-Triennale, Frechen (Germany); Tallinn International Triennial (Estonia); Xylon International Triennale (France); Varna Biennale (Bulgaria) and the Ljubljana International Biennale (Slovenia). Comprehensive surveys of Poskovic’s work have been organized by the Philadelphia Print Center (2001); the Plains Art Museum (2001); the Des Moines Art Center (2006); the Bemis Center for Contemporary Art (2007); the Interlochen Arts Academy Dow Center for the Arts (2008); and by the Frans Masereel Centrum in Belgium, which traveled to Stad Leuven Academie en Conservatorium and Atelier Vrije Grafiek, Academie voor Beeldende Kunst, Ghent in 2009.
Poskovic works are represented in the permanent collections of the Philadelphia Museum of Art; the Royal Antwerp Museum of Fine Arts, Belgium; Centre National des Arts Plastiques, Cairo, Egypt; the Fogg Art Museum-Harvard University; National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts; Republic of China; New Orleans Museum of Art; the Art Institute of Chicago; Orange County Museum of Art, California; the Kennedy Museum of American Art; the University of Iowa Museum of Art; Des Moines Art Center; Tampa Museum of Fine Arts; Vaasa Ostrobothnian Museum, Finland; and the Musée d’Art Contemporain Fernet Branca-Saint-Louis, France.
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