Can we do something together, just this and then free forever. (Light Blue)
Can we do something together, just this and then free forever. (Light Blue) evokes a monstrance whose interior and exterior are covered with a corrosive fleece. It is protected on one side by a glass plate from which a glowing substance flows. The exterior of the work is covered with sharp branches bristling on its opposite side. A mixture of earth, gravel, glass, pigments, and sand completes the ensemble. Like a fortress under attack from all sides, this installation seems to display formidable defence mechanisms to deal with an enemy, but Petrit Halilaj takes care to add a form of wound, as if a gap had been opened in the protective enclosure. The synthetic and poetic language of this work takes on a universal quality by evoking the wound of an individual or a people pushed to the limit. Its very title carries a tragic dimension: it is a plea, a final request for commitment before a brutal separation, as if the artist were reliving his final memories of his native country before being torn away from it when he was barely an adolescent.
Text written by Manon Prévost-Van Dooren as part of the partnership between the École du Louvre and Lafayette Anticipations – Fonds de dotation Famille Moulin.
Exhibition
Art Basel, Bâle (Suisse)
from 19 Jun to 22 Jun 2014