The Confucius Institute at U-M proudly presents “Majestic | Dream,” a solo exhibition by Endi Poskovic, Professor of Art at the Penny W. Stamps School of Arts and Design, University of Michigan. Professor Poskovic’s creative practice considers a range of technologies as a way to explore certain characteristics of printed image: translation, multiplicity, seriality. Through his works, Professor Poskovic seeks to construct representations that suggest broader themes of displacement, exile, memory and reconciliation. A frequent visitor to China, Endi Poskovic, Professor of Art at the University of Michigan Penny W. Stamps School of Art & Design, is a great admirer of Chinese and Asian visual and material arts. Poskovic’s work in woodblock relief printmedia reflects his deep fascination and a lasting involvement with Chinese intellectual and creative communities. To celebrate this long and fruitful engagement as a bridge between artistic China and the University of Michigan, CIUM presents this exhibition.

Over the course of years, Poskovic has produced several major series of multi-plate color woodcut prints utilizing both established and non-traditional approaches frequently combining analog carving methods with laser engraving from bit-map data files. For this Confucius Institute sponsored exhibition, Poskovic presents an intimate selection of color woodcuts from two series of works, “Majestic” and “Dream”, focusing on landscape imagery informed by real and imaginary topographies, including several works which are based on his sketches drawn in China. Merging visual image with text, Poskovic’s “Majestic Series” shifts the reading of the woodcut by providing an unexpected new context and forcing the viewer to continually reinterpret. In “Dream Series”, Poskovic explores primitive strategies of early cinema to investigate personal and social histories, shifting cultural identities, environmental transformation, migration and alienation.

Endi Poskovic was educated in Yugoslavia, Norway, and the United States. His graphic works have been exhibited worldwide and have brought him many notable awards and honors, including grants and fellowships from the Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, the United States Fulbright Commission, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Pollock-Krasner Foundation, the Norwegian Government, the Camargo Foundation, the Flemish Ministry of Culture, the New York State Council on the Arts, and the Art Matters Foundation, among others. Museum collections which hold works by the artist include the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Harvard University Fogg Art Museum, Detroit Institute of Arts, Jincheon Art Museum, South Korea and others.