Jakup Ferri: Dont tell anybody

Tirana Art Center presents “Don’t Tell Anybody”, a series of videos by Jakup Ferri, in collaboration with Tirana International Film Festival. From December 5 until 10, 2011 for the TIFFs special program will be presented three videos by Jakup Ferri. In “An Artist Who Cannot Speak English is No Artist” Jakup Ferri ironically questions these definitions of his practice at home and within the international art circuit. Acting as a protagonist in many of his videos, Ferri is concerned with history and memory, when like in a recent video he continues Croatian artist Mladen Stilinoviç´s thoughts expressed in the famous 1992 embroidery: An artist who speaks no English is no artist with his own broken English. In “Three Virgins”, the artist first listens to a performance by Yoko Ono and John Lennon calling each other by their names, and then starts calling his own name ‘Jakup! Jakup!’ He might be resurrecting the old saying ‘Nomen est omen’? Or, better yet, he might be searching for the place where the ‘delayed’ stand among the stars? In “Don't Tell Anybody”, Ferri counts the number of grains in one kilo of rice. In medieval times, scholars engaged in heated arguments over the number of angels balancing on the point of a needle. For no purpose. Scholars of modern day materialism count the number of grains in rice. For no purpose.

Jakup Ferri was born in 1981 in Prishtina. Lives and works in Amsterdam and Prishtina. After studying at School of Arts in Prishtina he was part of numerous art residences like Kultur Kontakt Austria, Rijksakademie Van Beeldende Kunsten Amsterdam, International Studio and Curatorial Program New York etc. In 2003 he wins M.Mulliqi Prize Prishtina and Artists of Tomorrow, also Prishtina. He has exhibited at 28th Graphic Biennale Ljubljana, Quadrennial for Contemporary Art Copenhagen, Prague Biennale 3, Zacheta National Gallery Warsaw, National Museum of Contemporary Art Bucharest, 9th İstanbul Biennial, KW Institute for Contemporary Art Berlin, Portikus Frankfurt, Cetinje Biennale V, Kunsthalle Fridericianum and De Appel Amsterdam.

Jakup Ferri
Don't tell anybody
Kurator: Fani Zguro