Petrit Halilaj
*Kosovo, 1986
lives and works in
Bozzolo, Berlin and Pristina

PH/I 248, Untitled (Objects), 2009
tubes, wood, found objects, video from
They are Lucky to be Bourgeois Hens II, Kosovo, 2009
210 x 270 cm
Courtesy collezione Mariano Pichler

Selected Exhibitions:
Kunstraum Innsbruck, Austria, 2011; Kunsthalle Sankt Gallen, Switzerland, 2012; 
Venice Biennale, Italy, 2013; WIELS Contemporary Art Center, Brussels, Belgium, 2013; Kunsthalle Lissabon, Lisbon, Portugal, 2014; Bundeskunsthalle Bonn, Germany, 2015; Kölnischer Kunstverein, Köln, Germany, 2015; National Gallery of Kosovo, 2015; The Israel Museum, Jerusalmen, 2016; PAC Milan, Italy, 2015; 57. Biennale Venezia, Italy, 2017

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As a child, artist Petrit Halilaj (Kosovo, 1986) lived through the war in his homeland, Kosovo, before addressing the experience of emigration as a youth. He is now working wholly personal images of his recollections into his art. Here he presents ‘PH/I 248, Untitled (Objects) 2009’, an ensemble of objects made of pipes, wood, neon lights and other miscellaneous materials – fragmentary recollections of his earlier life in Kosovo. The related video work, ‘They are Lucky to be Bourgeois Hens II’ (Kosovo, 2009), documents a wooden construction in the form of a space shuttle that Halilaj built as a henhouse in his parents' garden. The artist regards the past not as an unattainable construct, but brings it into the present in the form of surreal but, at the same time, poetic intrusions and ensembles of different materials.