Through art, Ive always been saving my life, says Petrit Halilaj.
It was always a way out and a window to imagination and dreaming and telling stories.
TAKE FLIGHTAn installation at the Museo Tamayo in Mexico City in 2023.
ANIMAL FARMPetrit Halilaj’s mantra is coexistence, and this extends to all manner of flora and fauna.
This month, he is installing a major project on theroof garden of The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
(He also lives and works in Pristina, the capital of Kosovo, and in Italy.)
A blond, slim, wiry figure with a prominent nose, he speaks fast and laughs often.
TAKE FLIGHTAn installation at the Museo Tamayo in Mexico City in 2023.
Halilaj is not supposed to discuss the Met project in advance, but his enthusiasm for it brims over.
ELEMENTARYAn original drawing made by Halilaj in a refugee camp in Albania when he was a child.
The wars showed how unrespected many minorities were.
ELEMENTARYAn original drawing made by Halilaj in a refugee camp in Albania when he was a child.
And I feel that, through culture, we can bring people to a new conversation.
They will sustain each other sculpturally, blend together in kind of a chorus that makes a new song.
SUSPENDED ANIMATIONAt the Tate St. Ives in 2021.
SUSPENDED ANIMATIONAt the Tate St. Ives in 2021.
And that makesit extremely powerful.
Growing up in the small village of Runik in northern Kosovo, Halilaj could draw before he could talk.
Kosovo had lost its autonomy in the late 1980s, when Serbian dictator Slobodan Milosevic seized control.
OLD AND NEWAn installation Halilaj mounted with his husband, Álvaro Urbano, in Venice In 2023.
His family and all the other ethnic Albanians in the region were systematically forced out of the country.
My house was burned in early 98, then my grandparents house in early 99.
We ended up in refugee camps in Kukes, one of the first cities after you cross the border.
HATCH AN IDEAAnother work by Halilaj and Urbano,What Comes First,from 2015.
OLD AND NEW
An installation Halilaj mounted with his husband, Alvaro Urbano, in Venice In 2023.
My mom has an artists mind, he tells me.
This is where Halilaj met Angelo, the Italian psychologist, who encouraged him to make drawings.
SOLAR POWEREDA view of the exhibition “To a raven and hurricanes that from unknown places bring back smells of humans in love,” Museo Reina Sofía— Palacio de Cristal, Madrid, 2020–2021.
They corresponded for several years.
I made it to ask Kofi to stop the war, he tells me.
The scene was captured on Albanian television.
HATCH AN IDEAAnother work by Halilaj and Urbano,What Comes First,from 2015.
When the war ended, Halilaj and his family returned to Kosovo and struggled to restart their lives.
He also came out as gay.
I knew I was gay, he says, but Inevercould tell anyone in Kosovo.
I never saw two gay men in Kosovo together.
But in Milan, there was a whole community.
He went to Turin and discoveredarte poverathrough the work of Alighiero Boetti, Mario Merz, and Marisa Merz.
I dont want to do just painting.
I want to tell stories through everything you have around.
In 2010, having graduated from Brera Academy and moved to Berlin, Halilaj participated in the Berlin Biennale.
It was his debut show on the global stage.
(The piece is titledThey are Lucky to be Bourgeois Hens.)
And he began his ongoing drawing series ofBourgeois Henspencil sketches of fowl with a regal mannerin 2009.
Halilajs mantra is coexistence.
The costumes are alter egos that tell stories, he explains.
The plane became what he calls a political flying chicken, crossing borders throughout the Americas without a visa.
They met again two months later.
Soon after that, they started living together, along with 12 uncaged and free-flying canaries.
In 2020 they married in a joyous celebration in their studio and home.
It was the most emotional and beautiful day of my life, Halilaj says.
It was timed to coincide with the fifth annual Pristina Pride Week.
Once a year, Halilaj and Urbano travel to a country theyve never been to before.
On The Mets roof garden, there can be very high winds.
Its funny to think that my sculptures should have to survive hurricanes at The Met.
