The Muslim Mulliqi Prize 2009, aims to take on the discourse built through the previous six editions, from Nadja Zgonik’s “Identity Kit” (2003), where many international artists were invited to participate, through Gëzim Qëndro’s “Glocal” (2004), who further elaborated on this theme, up to Mehmet Behluli’s “Conquering New Spaces” (2005) and the most local art-oriented exhibitions curated by Mustafa Ferizi, Suzana Varvarica Kuka and D.N.K. Filoart.

The goal of this year’s exhibition is to take a step forward and suggest that we have now officially entered a “post-globalization” era. Whilst globalization undoubtedly had beneficial effects for the art world, with the possibility of traveling and experiencing first-hand the proliferation of international exhibitions, fairs, and artists’ residencies, it seems that the tendency of exoticizing art had to a certain extent never faded away. The introduction of art from peripheral realities to a Western-centric platform had indeed followed a predictable pattern, which can be synthesized in the discovery of a vibrant new generation of artists, followed by the establishment of a scene, and the subsequent arrival of a new generation openly critical towards this new system and willing to leave its mark in a different way. Truly international movements, such as Fluxus in the 1950s or The New Tendencies in the 1960s, in which the Balkans played a major role, were largely based on artists sharing similar concerns, with geography playing a significant but unquestionable secondary role.


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The concept of a “National/International”, or for wanting of a better term, “Global/Local” art, has seriously exposed its weakness in big exhibitions inspired by the 1930s model of the Universal Pavilion such as the Venice Biennale, with the past few editions featuring complex scenarios such as Jason Rhoades (an American representing Denmark), Carlos Amorales (a Mexican representing the Netherlands), or most recently Liam Gillick (a British based in New York representing Germany). It is evident from this picture that the notion of nationalism or internationalism has significantly changed and that debating on it in the terms currently in use is getting a sterile mechanism.

Has the train already left the station? Possibly yes. Hence the necessity to set up an exhibition that mainly focuses on the artists and their work – an invitation to look at art by taking a different route, calling all the stations and use every single stop as an element to compose a long journey.


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Galeria e Arteve e Kosovës

Rr. Agim Ramadani nr 60

10000 Prishtina Kosovo

+381 38 225627