TIRANA, March 12 – Tracing history and biography, Kosovo artist Petrit Halilaj has opened the “She, fully turning around, became terrestrial” exhibition at the Bundeskunsthalle museum in Bonn.
“The artist quotes images from his personal recollections and draws on them in his work, translating them into the changed reality of the present day and, with it, into a new context and a new ‘guise’ – which often involves considerable magnification. He pursues this investigation of the past not just on his own behalf,” says the museum.
In this special exhibition, Halilaj who shares his working time between Germany and his native Kosovo, has investigated the history of the collection of the Natural History Museum which had to make way for the displays of the Ethnographic Museum of Kosovo. Having tracked down the stuffed animals and other specimens – most of them ruined by years of willful neglect and damp – in the stores of the Kosovo Museum in Prishtina, he has single-mindedly applied himself to the task of ensuring their safety and conservation.
In 2013, Petrit Halilaj, 29, represented Kosovo in its first ever participation at the Venice Biennale.
His latest exhibition at the Bundeskunsthalle museum will be open to the public until October 18.
