Endi Poskovic (born as Elvedin Pošković[1] on January 29, 1969) is an American visual artist, printmaker and educator.[2]
His early graphic work merges visual representation with text, often shifting the reading of the imagery through continuous representation and re-contextualization.[3] Poskovic's woodcut prints invoke influences as disparate as early cinema, classic Japanese woodblock prints, devotional pictures, and Eastern European Propaganda poster. The amalgam of diverse scenarios and visual narratives in Poskovic's work imply accounts from personal and social histories and reference themes of cultural and environmental shifts, migration and alienation that are at once magnificent and tragic.[4][5]
Working in a range of print media from relief printing, intaglio, lithography to hybrid techniques,[27] Poskovic's early graphic works typically juxtapose a strong central image with seemingly unrelated text in a foreign or imaginary language evoking a multileveled meaning. Writing for the Omaha Reader, artist Mary Day states that "Gazing at one of these prints becomes an apprehension of the unseen and unknown. The unknown being what came before, and after, this particular moment captured in an amalgam of image, text, paper, and ink."[28] In recent years, Poskovic has worked extensively in lithography printmaking in collaboration with Tamarind Institute master printer Jill Graham[29] at Open Studio Toronto, as well as NSCAD University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, producing a series of stone lithographic prints and animation Crossing Series.[30][31][32] Poskovic's Crossing Series assimilates memory and reality as a way to underscore a personal tale of discovery.[33] Working through additive and subtractive stone lithography printing and short animations to depict topography specific to Southeastern Herzegovina and Dalmatia region, Poskovic indirectly examines the recent political and demographic shifts in the country of his birth.[34] The achromatic lithographs, based on small aluminum models Poskovic makes, are filmed and drawn directly on limestone from the film stills. The classical drawing’s translation through lithography’s dense method pays homage to the history of the process invented in 1796 by German author and playwright Alois Senefelder.[35] In these works, Poskovic invokes the works of Frederic Edwin Church, Caspar David Friedrich, Edvard Munch, and Winslow Homer.[31] In the animations, simple, eloquent transitions from image to image, such as an iceberg gradually morphing into a cloud, or a stormy, rain-filled cloud evaporating into nothing, create a familiar, yet unsettling experience. This hybrid blend of drawing, print, and animation creates an amalgam of possibilities, in which the unfamiliar becomes almost tactile, while the familiar (rocks, clouds, water) provides a handhold on reality.[36]
Endi Poskovic: Sarajevo’s Andy Warhol, Tea Ivanovic, Sarajevo Oslobodjenje[72]
"In Crossing the Dreams to Unnamed Reality"essay in Celebrating Print Magazine[73]
Essay Catalog of the exhibition Souffrance et L'Aventure Plains Art Museum, 7 December 2000 – 11 February 2001.
Jacqueline van Rhyn Catalog essay published on occasion of the exhibition, Endi Poslovic: Endiana and other tales, Philadelphia Print Center, 19 January – 3 March 2001.
Amy N. Worthen Catalog essay published on occasion of the exhibition Endi Poskovic: Large Color Woodcuts: Des Moines Art Center, 22 September 2006 – 4 February 2007. ISBN1-879003-47-3
Andrew Stevens Catalog essay published on occasion of the exhibition Endi Poskovic: They Are All Indespensible: Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, 2 March – 26 May 2007.[74]
Eric Mathew Brochure essay published on occasion of the exhibition Endi Poskovic: Merry Folly and the Mt. Blanca at Open Studio, 28 May – 20 June 2009.
Irfan Hošiċ Catalog essay published on occasion of the exhibition Bosanskohercegovačka umjetnost nakon 11/9 Gradska Galerija Bihaċ, 2–23 July 2009.[75]
Donna Westerman Catalog essay published in conjunction with the exhibition Impact-The big print and in collaboration with LAPS Newsprint Journal, Frank M. Doyle Arts Pavilion, 9 September – 23 October 2009.
Nontoxic Print Some Thoughts on Making Very Big Prints[76]
Interview with Sarah Burford, Guggenheim Foundation The Everyday Reality of a Different World: Endi Poskovic Shares his Vision[77]