It is the first time dear, that you have a human shape, 2012
exhibition view at Kunsthalle Sankt Gallen, July-September 2012
photo: Kunst Halle Sankt Gallen, GUNNAR MEIER

–

It is the first time dear, that you have a human shape, 2012
exhibition view at Kunsthalle Sankt Gallen, July-September 2012
photo: Kunst Halle Sankt Gallen, GUNNAR MEIER

–

It is the first time dear, that you have a human shape, 2012
exhibition view at Kunsthalle Sankt Gallen, July-September 2012
photo: Kunst Halle Sankt Gallen, GUNNAR MEIER

–

Several birds fly away when they understand it , 2012
exhibition view at Kunsthalle Sankt Gallen, July-September 2012
photo: Kunst Halle Sankt Gallen, GUNNAR MEIER

–

detail from Several birds fly away when they understand it , 2012
photo: Kunst Halle Sankt Gallen, GUNNAR MEIER

–

Several birds fly away when they understand it , 2012
exhibition view at Kunsthalle Sankt Gallen, July-September 2012
photo: Kunst Halle Sankt Gallen, GUNNAR MEIER

all works courtesy the artist

–

Objects and architectures haunted by their layered histories are the protagonists in Kosovar artist PETRIT HALILAJ’s large-scale installations.

On account of his own experiences in life*, PETRIT constructs fragmentary narratives using simple materials such as earth but also live chickens and found archives from vanished museums in Kosovo. In this way he discloses a personal view on his complex history and palpably illustrates the complexity of cultural, ethnic, and political identities.

His last exhibition at Kunst Halle Sankt Gallen opens with a monumental installation entitled it is the first time dear, that you have a human shape (2012). It features his mother’s jewels (buried with the artist’s drawings during the war on their land in Kosovo to protect them from looters) which become oversized objects made of debris from the family home which was destroyed in the war and which already played an important role in earlier pieces.

Survived drawings are shown alongside the sculptures while other remains of the Kosovan home are reused as seating, on which viewers can sit down to watch a video in which debris regain new life through a flight of butterflies.

Despite his youth, HALILAJ’s exhibitions are precisely conceived narrations, in which the fictional – sometimes even the science-fictional – infiltrates the real sociopolitical context of the works on show. Not many artists know how to move an audience and awaken their emotions without becoming pathetic: and this is only one of the qualities embodied in HALILAJ’s work. – by GIOVANNI CARMINE published in ArtReview issue 57, March 2012

➝ Who does the earth belong to while painting the wind?! by PETRIT HALILAJ is currently on view at Kunst Halle Sankt Gallen (Switzerland) until September 23, 2012