Bekteši's artistic-research project Sofra Shqiptare, conducted earlier this year in Berlin, is conceptually rounded off with the work Euro Smile. Driven by years of research into his family's migration experiences, Bekteši explored various migration flows of workers in Berlin bakeries, originating from Kosovo and Albania. These flows were represented in the Berlin exhibition through a wall drawing and installation – intertwined simits in the form of a chain.
In the Sarajevo exhibition he is showcasing a performative act of getting a gold tooth. The practice of gold tooth-making, once typical of gastarbeiter (migrant workers), functioned culturally as a symbolic display of newly acquired power and economic prosperity. By investing the honorarium he received for participating in the Berlin exhibition into getting a gold tooth, Bekteši continues his cynical play with prejudices and stereotypes. At the same time, the self-proclaimed status of power, acquired through artistic work "across borders," becomes a symbolic and conceptual monument to all other "artist-gastarbeiters."
Adna Muslija,
Curator, Gallery of Contemporary Art Manifesto
Installation, 24K Gold tooth
In collaboration with Dr. Azra Pirović
Curator: Adna Muslija, Bojan Stojčić
Photo-documentation: Ajla Salkić
Video-documentation: Ahmed Avdagić
Gallery of Contemporary Art Manifesto
Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina
2024.