Abetare, Petrit Halilaj: The Roof Garden Commission (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781588397768)

This exploration of Petrit Halilaj's site-specific installation reflects the artist's personal experience as a refugee of war and the universal hopes and fears captured in children's drawings

Kosovar artist Petrit Halilaj (born 1986, Kost?rc, former Yugoslavia) creates complex, immersive installations that claim space for freedom, desire, intimacy, and identity while expressing his wish to alter the course of personal and collective histories. In his first major outdoor installation, the artist reflects on his experience as a refugee and explores the intersection of reality and fantasy through the rich world of children's drawings. This volume examines Halilaj's inspiration for the work in found inscriptions, carvings, and scribbles collected from desks at his former primary school and other schools in Eastern Europe--a record of young people's fantasies, fears, and private messages conveyed in many languages. An interview with Halilaj connects his practice with those of artists such as Louise Bourgeois and Julio Gonz?lez, situates this project within his broader career, and considers how memory, identity, and history present in his work. This publication reveals his new installation to be at once a story of children in a time and place marked by social and political conflict and a universal reflection on youthful imagination, hopes, yearnings, anxieties, and dreams.

Published by The Metropolitan Museum of Art/Distributed by Yale University Press

Exhibition schedule:

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
(April 30-October 27, 2024)


Author: David Breslin, Iria Candela
ISBN-10: 1588397769
ISBN-13: 9781588397768
Publisher: Metropolitan Museum of Art New York
Language: English
Published: 06/25/2024
Pages: 64
Format: Paperback