During June 24th – July 31st, 2021, Gallery70 in Tirana will be open for the visitors who want to see “Tintirini”, an exhibition by contemporary artist Jakup Ferri and his son Jip. The exhibition consists of several carpets that were handmade by women artisans from the northern Albania, based on the designs created by Jakup and Jip.
Jakup and Jip have created a total of 14 carpets, 5 of which are exposed at Gallery70. While combining the traditional Albanian artisanship with technology, the carpets exposed in “Tintirini” resemble the visuals of classic video games. 11-year-old Jip, an enthusiast player of Animal Crossing, seems to be interested in design and has an admirable technique in it. In this exhibition, Jip replaces his dad in the role of the creator by composing and combining the shapes and colors.
The carpets bear brightly colored geometrical shapes that highly contrast with each other, giving a digital aesthetic to their woolen material. All of them are unique copies that have been painted with acrylic paint after their weaving. The work was realized in the north of Albania by women artisans. The knots in their basic structure look like pixels when observed closely, as the carpets are large (200 cm x 200 cm) and their composition is clearly distinguishable. Their role is not only aesthetic. Tintirini truly represents applied art, as the carpets were made to fulfill their function at home and their aesthetics just complements the environment. Dualism, which is the conceptual basis of this exhibition according to Jakup Ferri, appears in the works in different ways. It appears as a creative feature of Jip, a youngster that designs objects of tradition together with his father, as if playing a game between generations; it appears in the double function of the carpets as art and as a functional item, also in the double nature of their structure – traditional and contemporary.
From more than 10 years, Jakup Ferri has restarted the making of carpets, about which he reminisces as an activity he used to do with his father. Now with his son he carries forward the tradition of weaving and family creations. Jakup’s style is obviously free of some rules of aesthetic or conceptual formation; it mostly resembles infantile art that hasn’t been bounded by scholastic requirements. Therefore, Jip seems to be the perfect partner for him, still free and fresh in his way of creating.
Near the carpets, the visitors will have the chance to see four paintings of Jakup Ferri, made with his characteristic style and in black and white. One of them shows friendly animals smiling at the visitor, while the three others show people engaging in different activities. A group of people of different ages taste the watermelon in harmony with the summer season, some others play chess in a field so big they could become players themselves; the last subjects paint a flower in a vase in front of them. Maybe (not that) coincidentally they are placed in the shape of the letter J positioned backwards.
The “Tintirini” exhibition was brought initially to Tirana, to later continue its tour to several European countries.
*Jakup Ferri was born in 1981 in Prishtina, Kosovo. He studied partly in Kosovo and partly in the Netherlands, near the Rijksakademie, in Amsterdam, where he also lives. Jakup Ferri is mainly engaged in absurd films and contemporary painting, and has participated in many international exhibitions. His paintings often address issues of identity and sense of exclusion. Childhood memories also play an important role and appear as subjects in Jakup’s paintings.
