“Space Shuttle in the Garden” brings together over ten projects by petrit halilaj (Kostërrc, Kosovo, 1986), in a game of cross-references between the works and the internal and external exhibition spaces of Pirelli HangarBicocca (via Chiese 2, Milan, 3 December 2015 – 13 March 2016, free admission).
The exhibition presents a selection of works created over the last few years, most of them unpublished in Italy, as well as adapted works and new productions conceived especially for the occasion. Starting from the experience and personal history of the artist, his family and his country of origin, the exhibition project explores universal themes such as memory, the search for identity, the concept of "home" as a place of sharing and individual space , up to touching aspects related to the community and to the creation and conservation of a shared cultural heritage.
“Space Shuttle in the Garden” is above all a journey into the artist's universe and mythology that starts from his personal experience. Through sculptures, drawings, performances, videos and large installations, Petrit Halilaj investigates the changes in history and the context that surrounds him, narrating the "revolutions" of his country of origin and of his generation. The artist experienced the brutal conflict between Kosovo and Serbia (1998 - 1999) and the condition of refugee. But above all, and more consciously, he experienced the rebirth of an independent country, the constant struggle for integration and the European dream. Living for several years between Italy (where he arrived in 2004), Kosovo and Germany, Halilaj represents a new generation with a complex and multicultural identity, of which his works become testimony and metaphor. Each work, while feeding on past and present events and stories, is projected into the future as it welcomes the artist's expectations and desires, anticipating visions and dreams that have yet to come true in reality.
Posted outside Pirelli HangarBicocca, the work They are Lucky to be Bourgeois Hens II (2009) is the ideal entrance to the exhibition: an elegantly painted space rocket inside Klein blue and inhabited by chickens – a recurring subject in the artist's work – invites you to discover a new world, all to be invented. The installation creates a microcosm where the public participates by observing, but without ever being able to access it: a familiar context and at the same time the inverted perspective of a gaze that comes from space.
In It is the first time dear that you have a human shape (2012 and 2015), Halilaj instead reconstructs, in bent metal and magnified a hundred times, the jewels that the mother had buried together with the drawings of her son to protect them during the months of war. Unusual presences that cross the exhibition space, the oversized jewels refer to some of the main themes of the artist's poetics. They bear witness to a wholly personal and intimate story, yet they bring us back to a broad and collective dimension linked to war and its destruction: set in jewels, instead of stones and gems, in fact there are debris and colored powder derived from the remains of the first family home in Kostërrc, which was destroyed.
And it is precisely the new family home in Prishtina, whose load-bearing structure was rebuilt on a full-scale for the Berlin Biennale in 2010, to return in a completely new guise to Pirelli HangarBicocca. In its essential and ghostly image, the work evokes a sense of loss which, however, as the title also suggests The places I'm looking for, my dear, are utopian places, they are boring and I don't know how to make them real (2010-2015), shuns any sentimentality or sense of nostalgia. Like a large family fresco, the work tells of a utopian and ideal place in continuous transformation: suspended in the space of the "Shed" of Pirelli HangarBicocca, the house fragments, reflecting the changes experienced by its inhabitants. All the rooms of the house considered individual, are detached from those that perform collective and shared functions, to navigate freely in space and dialogue with the surrounding elements.
Yes Okarina and Runikut Finally, (2014) is a series of sculptures inspired by a Neolithic wind musical instrument found in Kosovo in Runik, the town where Halilaj spent part of his childhood. The works, instruments that require audience participation, can be played both individually and in groups. In their forms elegantly suspended on brass supports or dropped to the ground in a completely spontaneous way, they recreate the space of a magical forest that preserves choral memories. Even the ancestral sound produced by the sculptures refers to an atavistic time, but the work lives above all in the present and in the public moment in which the instruments are played. In this sense Yes Okarina and Runikut becomes a metaphor for the entire exhibition: a journey through private and personal experiences which in sharing become a vehicle for self-knowledge and the surrounding world.
The artist
Petrit Halilaj was born in 1986 in Kostërrc, Kosovo. He lives and works between Berlin, Bozzolo (Mantova) and Kosovo. He studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Milan.
In 2013 he represented Kosovo in its first national participation in the 55th International Art Exhibition of the Venice Biennale. In 2010 you participated in the Berlin Biennale and, also in Berlin, in the exhibition “Based in Berlin” (2011). In 2014 he was in residence at Villa Romana in Florence, while in 2010 he was a finalist of the “Blau Orange” prize for emerging artists organized at the Hamburger Bahnhof – Museum für Gegenwart Kunst, Berlin. In 2015 he co-curated with Hans Ulrich Obrist the exhibition “Thirty One” at the National Gallery of Kosovo in Prishtina.
His works have been exhibited in major museums in numerous solo exhibitions and projects, including Bundeskunsthalle, Bonn (2015), Kölnischer Kunstverein, Cologne (2015); Kunsthalle Lissabon, Lisbon (2014); National Gallery of Kosovo, Pristina (2013); Fondation d'Entreprise Galeries Lafayette, Paris (2013); WIELS Contemporary Art Center, Brussels (2013); Kunsthalle Sankt Gallen, St. Gallen (2012); Kunstraum Innsbruck (2011); Center for Contemporary Art Pristina (2009). Among the group exhibitions, we mention those at the Marino Marini Museum, Florence (2015); PAC, Milan (2015); SALTS, Basel (2015); Punta della Dogana, Venice (2015); Palazzo Cavour, Turin (2014); Roman Villa, Florence (2014); Museum Schloss Moyland, Bedburg-Hau, Germany (2013); The Kosovo Art Gallery, Pristina (2012); Museion, Bozen (2012); Kunstverein Nürnberg, Nuremberg (2012); Nomas Foundation, Rome (2011); Bonner Kunstverein, Bonn (2011); New Museum, New York (2011); Tershane, Istanbul (2008).
The exhibition program of Pirelli HangarBicocca
The exhibition “Space Shuttle in the Garden”, dedicated to petrit halilaj, is part of the exhibition program conceived by Vicente Todolí for Pirelli HangarBicocca and is presented in the spaces of the "Shed" in conjunction with the exhibition of Philippe Parreno “Hypothesis” (open in the spaces of the “Navate” until 14 February 2016). In the “Navate” the Pirelli HangarBicocca calendar will continue with the exhibitions of Carsten Höller “Doubt” (April 6 – July 31, 2016), Kishio suga (September 2016 – January 2017), Miroslav Balka (March – July 2017), Lucio Fontana (September 2017 – January 2018), Matt Mullican (February 2018 – July 2018). In the "Shed" instead the exhibitions of Laure Prouvost (October 2016 – February 2017) e Maria Nordman (April – September 2017).
Pirelli Hangar Bicocca
The Pirelli HangarBicocca space for contemporary art is the natural continuation of a long tradition of attention to culture, research and innovation that has accompanied the Pirelli company since its foundation over 140 years ago. Pirelli HangarBicocca makes a programming of high-level exhibitions, a Public Program and a series of activities for children and families accessible to the public, making it a flexible space and a point of reference for Italian and foreign visitors.
