Omer Kaleshi: I have no children, when I leave I will leave the paintings to my Albanians!

Omer Kaleshi is a painter; he is a painter as Albanian, as Turkish, as French. But, the important thing: he is an artist. He has painted and exhibited in the most important galleries of the world, but now at this moment in his life, he is thinking of donating his paintings. Give it back to the Albanians - in Tirana, in Skopje, in Pristina, in Bursa where there are also many Albanians. He will give it back to the Albanians because he took from them art, painting, gratitude, and applause from them. xt But now he will donate it for exhibition, with two conditions. Not in prison, not in a gallery warehouse, not even without a frame. This is what he will leave behind. Because he will not leave behind children, he will leave behind paintings, paintings for Albanians.

Rudina Djunga: How many years are you away from the place where you were born in Macedonia?

Omer Kalesh: How far could I have been? Well 60 years.

Rudina Djunga: Yes, you speak excellent Albanian. How is it possible that you saved Albanian?

Omer Kalesh: Now I don't speak Albanian well. I don't know literary Albanian. I have not used Albanian much. When I was in the village, my father was a hodge, and that village was all Albanians. Even we children, when we went out to play in the village, we all spoke Albanian. I learned it there, when you are young you learn Albanian and you don't forget it. Not easily forgotten.

Rudina Djunga: One thing that impresses me about you is your childhood, it's all in your paintings. You took it with you, you took it to Paris, you keep it there.

Omer Kalesh: My father was a hodge, but he had a very good friend, he was a dervish. We were very children, and he came to us, slept with us in the village. We children rejoiced, "Ah, dervish Halimi will come!" And he gave us boiled chestnuts. But he had a big chin, and we couldn't see his mouth, we said: "Now we'll see how he eats, how he puts the spoon in." But I was very happy when he came. I have a memory, when the dervish came, when his figure, his head came. I always paint that head.

Rudina Djunga: Did you do any work other than painting all your life?

Omer Kalesh: When I was young, before I went to Turkey, I went to school in Skopje to become an electrician. I went to the army. I served in the army during Tito's time. In 1952-1954, I was a soldier in Croatia.

Rudina Djunga: Did you make paintings during your army time?

Omer Kalesh: I didn't know painting in the army. I didn't know painting, I didn't know anything about literature, we hadn't read any books.

I went to the army, later to a bookstore, because I had learned a little. This bookstore gave books to the soldiers. And there instead of socks they gave us suferesa, that's what they called there, a piece of cloth, you wrap the leg. I didn't use these for the legs, I was working with a pen, a pencil, portraits of Tito, Lelin, at that time Karl Marx and then Dostoevsky, Gogol because they had the novels there. Even the first time, I was introduced to literature, to novels, such as Dostoevsky. In these fabrics, portraits were made very well. Even our commanders and captains liked them and sought them out. But I didn't know anything, I had nothing to do with art. Then, when I came back, I went to work in a power station, in Skopje, there I saw an exhibition of Henry Moore. And from there I said I will become a painter. Henry Moore is a sculptor, but he has done many engravings. His engravings, in the Second World War, as in the subways, the people entered. Even, sleeping and staying with those who were afraid of the bombings, he created engravings. I liked them too, those figures. I also said I will become a painter. Nothing could stop me.

Rudina Djunga: Why, they said no, don't do it?

Omer Kalesh: I will become a painter, not I will see the galleries, the frescoes, in the churches that are around Skopje, the monasteries, the icons. Doomsday, I said, but I will become a painter. They couldn't stop me. As Ismail Kadare says in a book: "There are children in the family whose father is involved in music, and whose mother is involved in painting, art. The boy also comes from a family where both parents are artists. There are people who don't let the artist come out, "Don't go to the academy, don't become an artist!" there are also those children that no one can stop." It seems to me that I am one of them, they could not stop me. There was no way, I said: When we go to Turkey, because we were thinking of going to Turkey then. Then there was Yugoslavia, we couldn't do without it. I went to Turkey, to the academy. I had some problems, because I didn't know the Turkish language.

Returning to Tirana...

Rudina Djunga: How did Tirana in 2019 look to you, how was it to walk in Tirana today?

Omer Kalesh: God, I really liked Tirana.

Rudina Djunga: When was the last time you were in Tirana?

I spent a lot of time in Tirana, in 1989. Even then I came because there was an exhibition in Ankara. Even the ambassador of Albania in Ankara came to the exhibition, to the galleries and asked me: Have you been to Albania? I also told him that I have not been. "We will call you to come, as a friend of Albania," they told me.

Rudina Djunga: Was it the first time you came to the capital of the Albanians?

Omer Kalesh: First time, first time.

Rudina Djunga: How did it look to you?

Omer Kalesh: It seemed good to me, I was accompanied by Sadik Kaceli. As you know, he studied in Paris, he spoke French, but it seems to me that these people in Albania did not know that I knew Albanian, and Sadik Kaceli tells me:

"Welcome!" - French "Bon pour venir monsieur!" And I said: "Oh, I'm glad I found you!" Then he found out that I knew Albanian and he made me company. We have been together for 15 days, we have traveled all over Albania. We went to the galleries, and studied the painters' studios.

Rudina Djunga: Did you know that near the gallery where we are there is the atelier of Edi Hila, Muntaz Dhrami, and Skënder Kamberi?

Omer Kalesh: I didn't know, I found out today, you reported me.

Rudina Djunga: We are in a land of painters around here.

Omer Kalesh: Yes very well, these have been galleries before, and they are still galleries. And then when I first came, I went to the academy, and I showed some material with slides, it was not like today.

The trips…

Omer Kalesh: When I was studying in Istanbul, I was not allowed to go outside of Turkey. I had a relative, a professor, he was in Belgrade. He sent me a guarantee to leave, a letter to leave Turkey. I didn't go out for a year, in Europe, with my two friends, we walked alone in Turkey, the whole of Turkey.

Rudina Djunga: Why did you run away from Istanbul to Paris?

Omer Kalesh: Not only me, every painter has a mind to go to Paris, to see it. Because Paris is the center for artists, painters more. Not America, not Japan, for me, for artists it is Paris, forever. Even when I went out, I went to Paris, because I had some friends there, from the countryside. From Paris, I then went to London, Vienna, for another year, because I had Francisco Goya as my chosen master, I definitely wanted to go to Spain. Once our professor told us to choose from a master whom we loved, and to have a relationship with him, to study him.

Rudina Djunga: You chose Goya.

Omer Kalesh: I chose Goya, I even went, as a student then. I even worked in Paris in one place, I did some painting, because there were some Albanians, they found me a job. They knew people who painted in houses, and I worked there for a month. Then I went to Spain, it was 1963.

Rudina Djunga: In Spain, I run to Goya.

Omer Kalesh: Why not, that's what I went for! I went to Goya before. And in Madrid, near Prada, in a church it is called "Saint Antonio de la Florida". Even the dome was made by Goya when he was very young, nearly 40 years old. He went to Italy, and studied the frescoes and made the entire dome very frescoed, and it is there as a museum. Goya seems to me to have died in France. After a few years, they took him and buried him in the church.

I was going around Europe, and I had many friends, at that time, friends who were from the national front, like Abaz Ermenji, and he gave me many addresses. For example, there was one at the BBC, in London. He gave me an address to go to the BBC, there were many Albanians working there and I used to go to museums, galleries, and they would tell me: 'let's have lunch here' and then we would go to a friend's house and sleep there. Even in Italy like that, in Rome like that.

Rudina Djunga: Just travel and look at galleries. How do you manage money?

Omer Kalesh: Oh the money! My friends knew me well. When I went to London, it was late, and I didn't know the English language, and now I don't. I got on the train, I couldn't go to these people whose address I had because it was late and there was a phone booth there, I got in there and slept a little. I was sleeping, then the police came. I don't even know what they told me, but I told them: "British Museum, Tate Gallery." They were surprised, and said: "This one doesn't understand English, but I know these museums where he is going." Even they left me and didn't talk to me. When we were in America, at the Metropolitan Museum, 1980 there was a new Picasso exhibition and then I saw Guernica. Guernica was in America. Picasso had said that, as long as Frankoja was alive, he would not take her there and was always in America. And I saw very large salons, with works, that Picasso had done. A very large salon with only studies of Guernica. And in all places I went only for museums, galleries.

Rudina Djunga: And then, when you became a famous painter, did you return to these countries with your paintings? In places where before you were just a traveler.

Omer Kalesh: Yes, but not in all countries, only in some.

Rudina Djunga: What is it like to be a visitor and what is it like to be an exhibiting painter? When do you have the most fun?

Omer Kalesh: I enjoy more when I do exhibitions. Large exhibitions like those at UNESCO in Paris. It is a big exhibition and the Embassy of Albania to UNESCO, Turkey and Macedonia also participate. All three of these embassies participated in the great exhibition held at UNESCO. We also learned the place where the exhibition with these three countries was held. Because I exhibit everywhere.

Dervishes...

Omer Kalesh: Yunus Emre, was a great poet of Turkey, he lived at the same time as Rumi Uhirling, Mevlana, Haxhi Bektash Veliu. Turkey wanted to make an exhibition, with Emre, because even here in Tirana there are Yunus Emre's cultural centers, there are in Skopje. And I made many dervishes. A 40 dervish paintings.

Rudina Djunga: Meanwhile, now a moment has come for you that you want to distribute your paintings in the lands that belong to you, in Skopje, in Pristina, in Tirana, in Bursa and in Paris. How did this moment come about?

Omer Kalesh: This started in Kosovo, a journalist in Albania, Qani Mehmeti, passed away 4-5 years ago. But he became sebe sefte to make a gallery. I never intended to make a gallery like this, but one after another later, and several galleries were made. Now I am very satisfied that this work was done, but it was done by chance by Qani Mehmeti with the rector of the university 'Iliria'.

Rudina Djunga: There are now some of your paintings?

Omer Kalesh: There they are. The first time was done there, and then it continued at the "Mother Teresa" University in Skopje. At the beginning of this year, a gallery was made, donations, these are gifts, I forgave them, they were made in Turkey, in Bursa.

Rudina Djunga: And the last one is in Tirana, among the Bektashi?

Omer Kalesh: Yes!

Rudina Djunga: You have received so much from the Albanians, in Ankara, in Bursa, in Macedonia, or Kosovo, and in Tirana, and now in this moment of your life, you are giving it back in a certain way. You are returning your paintings to the Albanians again.

Omer Kalesh: In Albania I wanted to do something and I talked with Luan. I leave a part of my work in Albania. I worked in Pristina, Macedonia, Turkey, but in Albania there was no activity, no initiative.

Rudina Djunga: Why are you sharing the paintings? Why aren't you keeping them to yourself?

Omer Kalesh: What do I do? The family does not paint, I have no children to paint. For example, like Kaceli, he had Burani, he has a gallery. But I am very happy that this is also done in Albania. Moreover, I was not notified, but this is a very positive surprise for me. The municipality will make a cultural center at Piramida. There will also be a place where I will leave my paintings.

Rudina Djunga: You are forgiving a lot of yourself for the Albanians now.

Omer Kalesh: Of course, I am very pleased. Until now there was no activity, no signal, that something can be done in Albania.

Rudina Djunga: Will you come back to Albania, then?

Omer Kalesh: Yes, I will come more often.

Rudina Djunga: I see you very happy in Tirana, in Paris you didn't have this vitality.

Omer Kalesh: I am also very happy about the fact that it will become a cultural center at Piramida, I was not informed.

Rudina Djunga: Why so glad you'll be at the Pyramid, you're at the Art Gallery?

Omer Kalesh: I have left two paintings in the Art Gallery, and I am not at all satisfied, because they are in prison.

Rudina Djunga: In prison? In storage? (laughs) Because paintings don't want prison, they want to be exposed.

Omer Kalesh: Therefore I say, wherever I go, if you give me a place, a small hall, as much as you can, I will forgive you. But don't put them in the warehouse. There is no painting, if you bring it to the warehouse.

Rudina Djunga: Not in stock and not frameless, those are the terms?

Omer Kalesh: Yes, you said it very well. I have never had a painting without a frame.

Rudina Djunga: Not in storage, not without a frame, even if you have a space, space for the soul, Omer Kalesh's painting comes and fills it.