Xhevdet Xhafa: Still Running

The National Gallery of Kosova presents Still Running, a major solo exhibition by Xhevdet Xhafa, one of the pioneering figures of modern art in Kosova. Bringing together works produced over more than six decades, the exhibition traces the continuities and transformations of a practice developed across changing artistic, institutional, and political conditions.

Working across painting, drawing, printmaking, performance, assemblage, and relief, Xhafa moves continually between image and object. Everyday things such as shoes, garments, cords, cloth, vessels appear as physical materials incorporated into the work. Attached, folded, covered, or absorbed into dense surfaces, these objects complicate the boundary between representation and material presence.

The body remains an insistent presence, even when it is absent. Worn shoes and clothing retain traces of use; folds, cavities, and damaged surfaces suggest contact, movement, and loss. In works dominated by black or white, familiar objects are partially submerged within monochromatic fields, becoming at once recognizable and estranged. Memory is therefore not simply represented as a subject, but carried through material, wear, and transformation.

Still Running takes its title from Xhafa’s reflection: “Life has never felt like a destination, but rather a continuous movement through time, memory, human dignity, loss, silence, and transformation. What matters is not arriving, but continuing.” In an interview with Hans Ulrich Obrist, the artist also recalls running through the landscapes surrounding Peja as “another form of thinking.” The title extends this recollection into the work itself, where forms and materials repeatedly return without remaining the same. Continuity is presented as a process of recurring, changing, and beginning again.

Developed through profound political and historical transformations in Kosova and the former Yugoslavia, Xhafa’s practice offers a record of artistic continuity shaped by rupture. Across six decades, what persists in the work is rarely left intact: objects are altered, displaced, covered, fragmented, and reassembled. Still Running approaches persistence not as permanence, but as the capacity to continue through transformation.

The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue featuring an interview with Xhevdet Xhafa by Hans Ulrich Obrist, essays by Övül O. Durmuşoğlu and Ješa Denegri, and previously unpublished works. The publication is designed by Nita Salihu Hoxha.

curated by family

Xhevdet Xhafa (1934) was born in Pejë, Kosova. He completed his studies at the Art School in Pejë in 1959, and subsequently at the Academy of Fine Arts in Ljubljana, in the class of Professor Gabrijel Stupica. He completed postgraduate studies there between 1962 and 1967. For many years, Xhafa taught painting at the Academy of Fine Arts at the University of Prishtina, contributing to the education of several generations of artists.

Selected solo exhibitions include presentations at the Youth Gallery, Belgrade (1973); Salon of Contemporary Art, Belgrade (1984); Gallery CCY, Paris (1985); Museum of Contemporary Art, Skopje (1996); National Museum of Kosova, Prishtina (2004); and National Gallery of Arts, Tirana (2017). His work has also been presented in group exhibitions including The Youth Biennale, and The International Biennale of Original Drawing in Rijeka, exhibitions in Slovenj Gradec, Cannes, Paris, Vienna, Rome, Wellington, Sydney, New York, Belgrade, Sarajevo, and The International Triennale of Painting in New Delhi. His work was also included in Fragile State – Art from Kosova in Manchester (2007) and The Heritage of 1989. The Second Yugoslav Documents Exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in Ljubljana (2017).

Xhafa is the recipient of numerous awards, including distinctions in Ljubljana and Prishtina, the National Award in Cannes (1975), an award at the New York Biennale (1980), the Nadežda Petrović Award in Čačak (1983), and the Golden Plate of ULUS in Belgrade (1985). His works are held in museum, gallery, and institutional collections in Kosova and internationally.

For media & PR inquiries, please contact Anila Spahiu: info@galeriakombetare-rks.com, T +383 38 225 627.

Supported by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism of the Republic of Kosova.