Endi Poskovic
Endi Poskovic
Endi Poskovic is a visual artist known for his work in printmedia which invokes influences as diverse as early cinema, Japanese ukiyo-e prints, and European Propaganda posters. Traversing analog and digital realms in his creative practice of drawing, printmaking and animation, Poskovic explores the nature of composite narrative in which visual signifiers, both real and invented, intersect to form imagery suggestive of dichotomies, proposing themes of displacement, transformation and revival.
Born in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina Endi Poskovic was educated in Yugoslavia, Norway and the United States. He studied music from an early age and during the 1980s performed traditional music of Western Balkans at festivals throughout Europe and the Middle East.
Poskovic’s works have been exhibited worldwide in important biennials and triennials including Taichung Biennial in Taiwan, Krakow Triennial in Poland, la Biennale de Trois-Rivières in Canada, Deutsche Triennale Frechen in Germany, Shanghai Print International Biennial in China, Bienal Internacional de Grabado Caixanova in Spain, Tallinn Triennial in Estonia, Ljubljana Biennale in Slovenia, and New Prints Series at the International Print Center New York. Comprehensive survey exhibitions of Poskovic’s work have been organized by the Philadelphia Print Center, Plains Art Museum, Des Moines Art Center, Bemis Center for Contemporary Art, Tidaholm Konstlitografiska Museet, Frans Masereel Centrum, which traveled to Stad Leuven Academie en Conservatorium and Ghent Academie voor Beeldende Kunst, and Zhejiang Art Museum in Hangzhou, China.
Poskovic is the recipient of notable fellowships from the Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation-Bellagio Center in Italy, Fulbright Commission Senior Research Fellowship to Poland, Pollock-Krasner Foundation, Camargo Foundation in France, Open Studio Toronto, New York State Arts Council, Frans Masereel Centrum in Belgium, MacDowell Colony, Kala Art Institute, Norwegian Government, and others. Museum collections which hold works by the artist include the Philadelphia Museum of Art; the Fogg Art Museum-Harvard University; the Detroit Institute of Arts; Jincheon Art Museum, South Korea, Vaasa Ostrobothnian Museum, Finland, New Orleans Museum of Art, Orange California County Museum of Art, the University of Iowa Stanley Museum of Art, Des Moines Art Center, Tampa Museum of Fine Arts, Musée d'Art Contemporain Fernet Branca-Saint-Louis, France, and numerous others.
In 2012 and 2015, Poskovic served on the International Jury of the Krakow International Triennial.
Endi Poskovic is Professor of Art at the University of Michigan Penny W. Stamps School of Art & Design.
My current research, a visual project Dream, is the culmination of my ongoing traversal between the analog and digital realms in printmedia, a body of work seeking to visually stretch the boundaries of visual image via translation, multiplicity, and seriality. Dream is a personal tale of discovery, a sort of roman à clef of displacement and my faith in a certain orthodoxy and potency of visual image revealed via printmaking. Dream reflects broadly on a way of life unafflicted by temporality yet devastated by the turbulent events in the country of my birth, Yugoslavia, some three decades ago. Via Dream, I seek to explore a range of eventualities, from hybridized narratives to unexpected scenarios suggested through the representation of recognizable imagery. For example, the depictions of rocks, clouds, wind in Dream are at once recognizable and yet still abstract. Such images can evoke a sense of place and time and suggest memory and displacement.