Bekim Fehmiu 2016

Curator: Looking at this pencil drawing, there’s something inherently intimate about it. Editor: I agree. There's a compelling quietness in Gazmend Freitag's 2016 portrait of Bekim Fehmiu. It’s interesting to consider how drawing—particularly pencil work—lends itself to such nuanced portrayals. Curator: Right? I love the artist's dedication to realism, but it has these little almost whimsical choices too. It’s got this beautifully moody tone, very understated. The texture reminds me of a charcoal or even faded newspaper print. You almost wonder, is it finished? Or deliberately raw? Editor: I read it as intentional rawness. Bekim Fehmiu was, after all, a famous actor from Yugoslavia, who famously stopped speaking in public towards the end of his life, an act of resistance against the wars breaking apart his country. Freitag might be gesturing towards Fehmiu's resistance through the seeming incompleteness. A ghost of a public figure. Curator: I love that reading, framing it in that political and personal struggle. Did Freitag know Fehmiu personally, I wonder? Because you feel this vulnerability in the piece, despite the subject's guarded gaze, a little peek behind the actor's mask. I find it interesting the drawing exists almost six years after Fehmiu died. Editor: It suggests an enduring impact, perhaps. Freitag gives us Fehmiu gazing slightly off to the side, which encourages us to wonder what he's looking at, or thinking. It's about presence, absence, resistance. I wonder if it’s also meant to be a comment on celebrity itself and the expectations we place on public figures. Curator: That makes perfect sense. Perhaps what hits me is just the incredible power of such simple media—pencil on paper—to create such depth of feeling and, honestly, storytelling. Editor: Absolutely. It’s a quiet story, perhaps, but potent in its commentary on identity, resistance, and the burdens of history.