ISMET JONUZI
Shadows of War, Shapes of Art
© Ismet Jonuzi: portrait of the artist with weapons from the Kosovo war, reused as art material
“Art isn’t done to decorate apartments, but to wage the war against the enemy.”
– Pablo Picasso
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Ismet Jonuzi (born 1961, Rahovica) is an internationally recognized Albanian artist from Kosovo. He graduated from the Academy of Figurative Arts – the Branch of Sculpture in Prishtina in the class of Professor Agim Çavdarbasha. Jonuzi was also a recipient of two international scholarships: a residency program offered by the Cité internationale des arts, Paris, in 1987, and the Heinrich Boll Schtiftung scholarship in Düren, Germany in 1997, which was a financially supported residency program for artists who suffered from the regimes of dictatorial and communist countries.
With works ranging from surrealism, conceptual art, assemblage, symbolic/figurative art and protest art, Ismet Jonuzi has participated in solo and group exhibitions widely across Europe and internationally. He has held solo shows in Kosovo, Croatia, Switzerland, Germany, France, Austria, Sweden, and North Macedonia, and his pieces have been featured in major institutions such as the Kosovo Art Gallery in Prishtina and the National Gallery of Skopje. On the international stage, he has participated in important events including the Venice Biennale, the Cuenca Biennale in Ecuador, and exhibitions in Melbourne and Taipei. His artistic achievements have been recognized with several significant awards, among them the Muslim Mulliqi Prize in Kosovo, the Grand Prix at the International Drawing Competition in Melbourne, “Best in Show” at Art Revolution Taipei, and the City Prize of Düren in Germany.
In 2023, Ismet Jonuzi was the organizer of the NOMade Biennale in Pristina, a global, collaborative art project that originated in Ecuador, and focuses on creative alternative framework for artistic production, engaging with local contexts and exploring the intersection of art, social justice, ethics, and politics. Ismet Jonuzi is based in Pristina, working as a regular professor in the department of Sculpture at the University of Prishtina since 1995.
In the actual global world context of deadly wars and fear of new ones on a world scale, the work of Ismet Jonuzi is probably more interesting than ever before, as he uses weapons from the war in Kosovo, that took place between 1998 and 1999 to depict the physical and psychological horrors of conflict, serving as powerful statements against violence. The weapons are demilitarized, reinterpreted, recontextualized. From objects of violence, destruction, and fear they become carriers of memory, markers of trauma, and means for reflection.
Art as a Form of Resistance in Times of Oppression
© Ismet Jonuzi: “Damage”, pen and ink on paper, VIII.International Biennal of Drawing Pilsen, Czech Republic, 2012
© Ismet Jonuzi, starting from the upper left: Skull sculpture, iron, 50.8 W x 63.5 H x 38.1 D cm, Kishki Drawing, ink on paper,
76.2 x 61 cm, N.T painting, acrylic on canvas, 762 x 508 cm, N.T. drawing, ink on paper, 254 x 431.8 cm, N.T. sculpture, modeling of iron, 762 x 203.2 x 38.1 cm
Prior to the actual war in Kosovo (1998-1999) that resulted in deaths of approximately 10,000 to 13,500 people, the forced displacement of over 800,000 Kosovar Albanians, and the destruction of countless homes, villages, cultural sites, and infrastructure due to actions by Serbian forces and NATO bombing. It is essential to understand the social and political climate preceding the war, the actual “blockage” that lasted for almost a decade.
In this sense, Ismet Jonuzi’s testimony is a precious reminder of art serving as a means of personal survival and preservation of cultural identity: “At that time, there were no galleries or museums within the official or state cultural institutions. Because of this, we created and sustained our own parallel institutions and schools. We organized exhibitions in cafés and restaurants—one well-known place was “Hani i 2 Roberteve”, where we held annual exhibitions of the Association of Visual Artists, as well as solo shows. In 1996, I had the chance to open my own solo exhibition there.
There was also a private gallery where most of the individual exhibitions took place. Schools, meanwhile, were set up in private houses, and professors from the Faculty held classes in their own studios. Students would attend lessons there, and the professors offered their time without receiving any material compensation.
© Ismet Jonuzi: N.T. painting-closeup, acrylic on canvas, 762 x 508 cm
“I often think that this sense of continuity is what saved us. If we had stopped, it would have been extremely difficult to start again from zero. Looking back today, I still ask myself how we managed to survive those times.”
It may sound almost impossible today, but it truly was possible—driven by the optimistic energy we had for education and culture. In fact, I believe there was more genuine passion and commitment then than there is now, even though we live under normal and standard conditions. I often think that this sense of continuity is what saved us. If we had stopped, it would have been extremely difficult to start again from zero. Looking back today, I still ask myself how we managed to survive those times.
We lived under a complete blockade by Serbia, faced police repression, and were isolated on all sides. Yet we were determined not to give up the fight for our rights. In 1989, Serbia, through tanks, force, and deception, dismantled the autonomy that we had gained in 1974. Propaganda claimed that nothing would be taken away and that we enjoyed the highest level of minority rights in Europe. But the reality was very different: on a land where 90% of the population were Albanians, we were treated as a minority by Serbia and Milošević’s regime.“
© Ismet Jonuzi: Pinocchio’s Skull Sculpture, 203.2 x 63.5 x 50.8 cm
Jonuzi’s Pinocchio Skull sculpture is a direct reference to this time of Serbia’s oppression, where Pinocchio represents the former Serbian president, war criminal and dictator Slobodan Milošević, showing how all dictators use lies and deception to secure their power. Another piece rich in symbolic imagery is the Self-portrait with newspapers. At the beginning of the war, newspapers played a key role in shaping public opinion because they often conveyed one-sided information and war propaganda. The news was written in a way that encouraged national feelings, hatred of the enemy and a willingness to sacrifice. A person as an individual in such an environment becomes a victim of propaganda because he loses his own objectivity and freedom of thought – the information he receives shapes his attitudes, decisions and emotions, and often leads him to participate in a conflict against his own interests.
© Ismet Jonuzi: self-portrait with newspapers
Memory Politics and Beyond
To be able to explain to myself the conceptual ideas of Jonuzi’s artwork, I investigated some key principles of Andreas Huyssen’s book Memory Art in the Contemporary World: Confronting Violence in the Global South, published in 2022 by Lund Humphries. In this book that explores, among other things, the intersection of art and memory in confronting historical violence and transformations of trauma through art, I found that Jonuzi’s sculptures exemplify Huyssen’s theory, demonstrating how art can serve as a dynamic, ethical, and communal medium for processing and representing collective memory.
© Ismet Jonuzi: The Lungs of Piece Sculpture, 152.4 x 203.2 x 50.8 cm
“The Lungs of Piece sculpture has a conceptual character, the idea is that we all breathe the spirit or war”, explains Jonuzi. This idea brings him close to the Colombian artist Doris Salcedo who speaks about war as an event that completely distorts life, creating a totality a person is embedded in. The sculpture also confirms that memory is influenced by the spaces we occupy and the times we live in. The materials and forms used also evoke specific historical moments, grounding memory in both space and time. The series of self-portraits with hands, are in my opinion the s tangible representations of collective trauma. They act as vessels for shared, anonymous histories, making abstract memories concrete and accessible.
“I am deeply affected by political uncertainty, which always produces unrest, poverty, migration and a life of insecurity.”
© Ismet Jonuzi: Self-portrait sculptures in bronze
“The series of bronze self-portraits serves as a metaphor for the torture endured during the war. In 1999, when nearly half a million Albanians fled to refugee camps in Macedonia, Albania, and Montenegro, my own family sought refuge in Macedonia. I was deeply affected by the images of people hiding their faces from the cameras—shielding themselves out of shame for what they had endured and for the circumstances in which they found themselves”, explains Jonuzi.
© Ismet Jonuzi: Lets talk about Peace sculpture, iron, 254 W x 431.8 H x 254 D cm
“What matters to me is that the work carries a powerful message, not that it is conventionally beautiful. I am not interested in creating decorations.”
With his installation Lets talk about Peace, Jonuzi creates an aesthetic tension by contrasting furniture-like pieces, everyday objects, a flower, with war elements. Thus the message is quite clear-the war is over, let’s sit and negotiate peace, it goes way beyond that, as Jonuzi uses absence (empty chairs) as a metaphor for people who are gone, for the lives that have been disrupted, giving space for mourning and remembrance. “What matters to me is that the work carries a powerful message, not that it is conventionally beautiful. I am not interested in creating decorations. I am deeply affected by political uncertainty, which always produces unrest, poverty, migration and a life of insecurity, explains Jonuzi.
© Ismet Jonuzi: Helicopter sculpture, bronze, 508 W x 304.8 H x 203.2 D cm
The Helicopter sculpture is a living memory of a freedom that came by the air, with the NATO bombing, representing the end of the war. This act of transformation of a war element into a new piece of “liberation”, symbolizes the dynamic nature of memory, turning instruments of destruction into symbols of resilience and transformation. “I have always wanted to be a chronicling artist—someone who visually captures the flow of events and the spaces where I live—without any sentimental or pathetic elements, because I am always striving toward that postmodern ideal“, says Jonzi.
It would be unfair to limit the creative opus of Ismet Jonuzi principally on the subject of war, as has drawn profound inspiration from Kosovo’s rich cultural heritage, myths and traditions. A good example is the Broken April sculpture, inspired by the homonymous novel of Ismail Kadare, the Albanian novelist and poet whose work explored his country’s history and culture.
© Ismet Jonuzi: Broken April sculpture, found objects, 254 W x 254 H x 1.8 D cm
Broken April sculpture is a visual representation of the Albanian tradition explored through the Kanun, a set of customary laws from northern Albania. One of the central elements of the Kanun is blood feuds (gjakmarrja), a strict code of revenge. The Kanun dictates that if someone kills a member of your family, you are obliged to take revenge by killing the murderer or a male member of his family. This cycle of retaliation is seen as a matter of honor; failing to avenge a murder would bring shame to the family. With this sculpture Jonuzi offers a visual dialogue that honors tradition, reflecting on the complexities of identity of the Kosovar people.
© Ismet Jonuzi: “As I tremble in the stone this wall also trembled” installation, NOmade Biennal “Bestia en Llamas”, Poland 2023
© Ismet Jonuzi: “As I tremble in the stone this wall also trembled” installation, close-up
“Art belongs to everyone. It would be foolish to create something solely for a personal audience. True art should be open, free of nationalist or limiting elements, because such constraints lead nowhere.”
“As I tremble in the stone this wall also trembled” is a contemporary tribute to Balkan and Albanian folk tradition, where stories of “immurement” or ritual sacrifice are common, often tied to the building of bridges, walls, or towers. tells of two brothers who wanted to build a bridge. They worked hard and completed it during the day, but each night the bridge mysteriously collapsed.A man explained that the bridge required a sacrifice to remain standing. The brothers decided that they must sacrifice a woman. They placed her on the wall and killed her. Because she had a small child, they left her breast exposed so that the child could continue to drink milk. Through this act, the bridge finally remained intact.
This installation presented in NOMade bienale in Poland (2023) encourages a collective dialogue though rooted in a particular, ethnic tradition, fostering a revisited interpretation of a specific culture within a multicultural context. As Jonuzi explains: “Art belongs to everyone. It would be foolish to create something solely for a personal audience. True art should be open, free of nationalist or limiting elements, because such constraints lead nowhere. Picasso taught us a clear lesson: art must remain open to the world. For me, the narrative is less important than the potential of the artwork itself—how it is made and how it draws us in.“
“lllusions are very important to me, because often times are more powerful than reality. They lead us into a magical world.”
© Ismet Jonuzi: Evidence sculpture, iron, 254 W x 508 H x 25.4 D cm
© Ismet Jonuzi: Evidence sculpture, close-up
The Evidence sculpture, created in 2022, featuring a large iron panel with a small, central human figure conveys a message of hope and resilience despite the darkness. Amidst destruction and trauma (symbolized by iron, burn marks, and small human figures), the gold signifies the enduring human spirit and the possibility of healing after conflict. There is also an illusionary aspect of Evidence, lying in its ability to transform a simple metallic sheet into a portal of meaning. In essence, Evidence is more than a physical object; it is an invitation to engage with the illusions that permeate our understanding of the world, urging us to look beyond the surface and question the truths we hold. “Illusions are very important to me, because often times are more powerful than reality. They lead us into a magical world”, says Jonuzi.
Speaking about future projects reveals the artist’s deep engagement with memory, shaped by post-conflict and socially engaged practices: “My next project will be about the Political Prison in Pristina, which has been converted into a museum. This will serve as a homage to my friend, who was imprisoned there as a student in 1983 and was the only one who managed to escape that hell. It’s a very original story, one that he told me himself. He now lives in Switzerland. He had been an organizer of student demonstrations, and if he had been sentenced, he would have faced 6–12 years in prison. That was the reason he was forced to escape—the idea itself came from him. He was a third-year painting student at the time.
I’ve visited the space several times to study it and plan what I will exhibit and how it will look in a place not originally intended for exhibitions. I am intrigued by the dramatic quality of the space—when you enter, you feel something profound. It has a dramatic aura: the atmosphere, the damp smell—it all resonates deeply.“
More about Ismet Jonuzi’s artwork:
Saatchi art:
Instagram: @ismetjonuzi
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