Ermir Zhinipotoku

Ephemeral Echos

08.02.–20.04.2024

The title of the exhibition encapsulates the artist's endeavor to present the work as an insertion into the silence of being or as an “ephemeral echo” gazing into its own silence. It appears that the emptiness of the cosmos, burdened with its cold animus, can only find expression through a poetic insertion. This poetic fracture, evident in the work of artist Ermir Zhinipotoku, manifests itself as a poetics of silence. This poetics resonates with all suppressed voices that have been excluded. However, the painting itself embodies a poetic representation of silence because it affirms silence. What remains silent in the painting is the word (poetry), while what is spoken in the poem is the image (painting) (Agamben); their fate is the same—it is the silence that eradicates the unsayable. The only way to manifest the silence of the unsayable is through these small echoes not articulated in words but manifested in silence, as the poetics of silence.
"Mute Birds" cannot be interpreted merely as an extension of Hitchcock's tropes, as his birds are vengeful, active, and aggressive. In contrast, in this work, they resemble Poe's birds, sharing similarities with our genius loci (spirit of the place). The raven symbolizes Prishtina and Kosovo as a living entity, taking on the form of a ghost inhabiting this country. Its gaze is as silent as the non-places we create and gravitate towards. "Mute Birds" signifies the surrender of being—it transcends existence—it serves as a metaphor between death and life. In this tension, there is only one gaze—the silence of the birds, reminiscent of Poe's poetry. This gaze represents the dream within the dream, which, when translated into conceptual registers, symbolizes the existence of the dream—a notion aligned with Kerouac’s belief that 'life is just a dream.'
In this exhibition, you will embark on an adventure featuring many untitled works because titling them would lend them a voice, contradicting the silent essence of the artist's life. His expression is manifested through ephemeral echoes in all his works, remaining loyal to silence as an aesthetic and poetic of creative being. Perhaps silence epitomizes the ultimate aesthetic moment, as Cage suggests. However, the aesthetics of silence are incomplete without the ontology of silence, beautifully articulated by Heidegger: "Man speaks by being silent." In the context of the exhibition, this phrase could be inverted to read: "The artist paints by being silent."

Labinot Kelmendi