A companion to Kosovar artist Brilant Milazimi's exhibition for the Republic of Kosovo Pavillion at the 2026 Venice Biennale that reflects on waiting, clenching, sovereignty, perseverance, and teeth.
This is the first publication exclusively dedicated to Prishtina-based painter Brilant Milazimi, assembled to accompany Hard Teeth (Dhëmbë të Fortë), his exhibition for the Kosovo Pavilion at the 61st Venice Biennale (2026). Resembling a collection of short stories, the book dwells on timely topics including sovereignty, migration, delay, speech and silence, perseverance, and the relevance of narrative in the face of contemporary adversities. Teeth here become placeholders for ideas, reflections, historical critique, and the power of the imagination. A series of newly commissioned texts from Magalí Arriola, Justin Beal, Hana Halilaj, and Ana Janevski are complemented by a selection of reprints from Migjeni, Vjosa Musliu, and Damir Pilić that add regional nuance and joy. José Esparza Chong Cuy's curatorial overview meanders through the book, summarizing the themes explored in Milazimi's work and briefly introducing each new text, while a reprint from Valeria Luiselli's The History of My Teeth links dental anecdote with literature, power, and the economy. A fragment from Hans Ulrich Obrist's visit to Milazimi's studio brings in reflections about home and movement. Finally, segments of Milazimi's large-scale landscape painting punctuate the publication before culminating in a full panorama. Brilant Milazimi received the 2020 Artist of Tomorrow Award in Kosovo, and was a resident at the Cité internationale des arts, Paris in 2024.
Brilant Milazimi's (born 1994 in Gjilan, Kosovo, lives and works in Prishtina) translates his perception of the world that surrounds him into images that are bitter, funny, tender, and weird all at the same time. Driven by the machinery of the unconscious, and inspired by the imaginaries of fictional universes, he finds expressions both sinister and poetical for an approach to the society he lives in: the exaggerated physiognomies and the highlighted symbolism of the teeth or the features of the animals are visual manifestations that point to the present and its conflicts.
Edited by José Esparza Chong Cuy and Sarah Demeuse.
Contributions by Magalí Arriola, Justin Beal, José Esparza Chong Cuy, Hana Halilaj, Ana Janevski, Valeria Luiselli, Migjeni, Brilant Milazimi, Vjosa Musliu, Hans Ulrich Obrist, Damir Pilić.
