The Roof Garden Commission: Petrit Halilaj, Abetare

By David Breslin and Iria Candela

Kosovar artist Petrit Halilaj (born 1986, Kostërc, former Yugoslavia) creates complex, immersive installations that claim space for freedom, desire, intimacy, and identity while expressing his wish to alter the course of personal and collective histories. In his first major outdoor installation, the artist reflects on his experience as a refugee and explores the intersection of reality and fantasy through the rich world of children's drawings. This volume examines Halilaj's inspiration for the work in found inscriptions, carvings, and scribbles collected from desks at his former primary school and other schools in Eastern Europe—a record of young people's fantasies, fears, and private messages conveyed in many languages. An interview with Halilaj connects his practice with those of artists such as Louise Bourgeois and Julio González, situates this project within his broader career, and considers how memory, identity, and history present in his work. This publication reveals his new installation to be at once a story of children in a time and place marked by social and political conflict and a universal reflection on youthful imagination, hopes, yearnings, anxieties, and dreams.

David Breslin is Leonard A. Lauder Curator in Charge of the Department of Modern and Contemporary Art at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

Iria Candela is Estrellita B. Brodsky Curator of Latin American Art in the Department of Modern and Contemporary Art at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.