Ten questions for Petrit Halilaj

Art

Ten questions for Petrit Halilaj

Art

“Ten questions for...” is a monthly column that aims to present and describe the work of an artist as well as the artist himself. The only tool in play is a set of questions: A sort of a “police identikit game” prepares the set for an imaginary interview. 

1     Kosovo, Italy and Germany have been and still are three countries where Petrit Halilaj lives and evolves. 

How does each of these countries serve Petrit as an individual and Petrit as a professional?

2     Home is….

3     Which experience or exhibition has been the trigger to start your career as an artist?

4     In a lot of your pieces are presents elements from Kosovo -your original country-, elements such as soil, animal documentation from an old museum, old school desks. May I ask you to talk about how you use these elements in your practice? Are they traces, physically part of personal stories? Or a way to talk about recent History?

5     Which is the reason behind this practice of taking away and at the same time bringing in a new context (artwork and gallery)?

6     Birds are a key element in your practice, as migratory animals are they in some way a metaphor of your biography? 

7     In your old pieces I remember the presence of hens, birds that cannot fly (“They are Lucky to be Bourgeois Hens” series). Then you have started to work with flying birds, and especially, to work on this physical quality in pieces like the one at Venice Biennale, Villa Romana and your recent exhibition in Koln. 

I am wondering, why this change? Is it due to a change in your life and your condition as an artist?

8     Although is a cliché question I will go for it anyways: If you weren’t an artist what else could you see yourself as? 

9     What elements in the art world do you consider enforcing and which elements can be discouraging?

10     Where do you see beauty?

Content    Alessio Mazzaro / Annie Markitanis

Photo 1    ©Petrit Halilaj-Abetare, Kölnischer Kunstverein, 2015

Photo 2    ©Petrit Halilaj-Berlin Biennale, 2010

Photo 3    ©Petrit Halilaj-Berlin Biennale, 2010

Photo 4    ©Petrit Halilaj-Can we do something together, just this and then free forever, 2013

Photo 5    ©Petrit Halilaj-Poisoned by men in need of some love from the exhibition at WIELS

Photo 6    ©Petrit Halilaj-Poisoned by men in need of some love from the exhibition at WIELS

Photo 7    ©Petrit Halilaj-Poisoned by men in need of some love, Book, 2013

Photo 8    ©Petrit Halilaj-Poisoned by men in need of some love, Exhibition, WIELS 2013

Photo 9    ©Petrit Halilaj-Poisoned by men in need of some love, Exhibition, WIELS 2013 

Photo 10    ©Petrit Halilaj-Poisoned by men in need of some love, Exhibition, WIELS 2013

Photo 11    ©Petrit Halilaj-Poisoned by men in need of some love, Exhibition, WIELS 2013

Photo 12    ©Petrit Halilaj-Poisoned by men in need of some love, Exhibition, WIELS 2013

Photo 13    ©Petrit Halilaj-They are Lucky to be Bourgeois Hens, 2009

Photo 14    ©Petrit Halilaj-Who does the earth belong to while painting the wind 2012

Photo 15    ©Petrit Halilaj-Who does the earth belong to while painting the wind 2012