Driton Hajredini / The wall is getting bigger

Driton Hajredini
The wall is getting bigger, oil on canvas, 300 × 500 cm, 2006

At first sight the painting of Hajredini looks like a photo from piled up suitcases in a bagage depot or a lost&found office. Looking more precisely and knowing the series of the artist’ suitcase-paintings, they reveal a paradox statement, condensing two concepts: Mobility and nomadism have increased in today’s world (Exodus of refugees, econimic emigrantion, asylum, tourism …), and at the same tim this nomadism stays within static borders, that are kind of a metaphor fort his coming and going. The paintings are more subtle than it seems. In the 90s Hajredini fled from the civil wars in Ex-Yugoslavia and lived in Germany where he studied art, using a false name. He was discovered and got into trouble with the german administration. Of course you can interprete his painting in this direction, but you can also see another level: Europe as microcosmos of the world that at the same time raises hope and builds up insuperable walls. (Shkëlzen Maliqi)

Driton Hajredini
Born in 1970 in Prishtina, Kosova.
Lives and works in Prishtina.
Education:
2003–2006 Visual Arts (class Daniele Buetti), Art
Academy, Münster, Germany 1999–2003 Art High
Education, Art Academy, Prishtina, Kosovao.
Solo exhibitions:
2008 The Wall, GAK, Prishtina, Kosovo
2007 Is it a sin …, Art Point Gallery Vienna, Austria
Selected group exhibitions:
2009 Discipline in public space. Prishtina ››› Who killed
the painting? Works from the Block Collection, Neues
Museum Weserburg, Bremen ››› Prague Biennale 4 ›››
George-Maciunas-Awardees, Nassauischer Kunstverein
Wiesbaden ››› Who killed the painting? Neues
Museum Nürnberg 2008 Where the East ends,
Kunstverein Wiesbaden ››› Exception – Contemporary Art
Scene of Prishtina, Novi Sad, Serbia ››› Berlinale – Talent
Campus, Berlin, Germany ››› Call and Response, New
Museum, New York, United States 2006 Kulturkontakt
Austria, Vienna, Austria ››› Leonhardi
Kultur Projekte, Frankfurt, Germany 2005 PS122 New York, United
States ››› Film Festival, Münster, Germany ››› Beton Salon,
Museumsquartier, Vienna ››› EMAF Osnabrück, Germany
››› Kunstfilmbiennale, Museum Ludwig, Cologne
Grants / Awards / Residencies:
2007 NRW Kunststiftung, Düsseldorf, Germany
2005 Kultur Kontakt Austria, residency, Vienna, Austria
››› NIFCA, residency, Reykjavik, Iceland
2003 First Prize, Video Fest Prishtina, Kosovo