petrit halilaj
presents his first exhibition in the netherlands in the fries museum
The Fries Museum will present Petrit Halilaj’s first solo exhibition in the Netherlands between 16 April 2022 and 5 March 2023. With a practice spanning installations, drawings and videos, Halilaj (1986, Kostërrc, Kosovo) often uses his own biography as a point of departure to investigate cultural identity, nationality, and heritage. His work recurrently includes birds and other animals as metaphors for transformation; moth costumes and bird-like sculptures, for example, have frequently appeared in his large-scale installations. Ru (2017) and Shkrepëtima (2018), two of his most renowned monumental projects, can be experienced in Leeuwarden from the spring of 2022 onward. At the Fries Museum, Halilaj interweaves reality and imagination in installations that shed light on the role of art and cultural heritage within a community.