The Nasher Sculpture Center in Dallas has awarded Petrit Halilaj with its biannual $100,000 prize for his contribution to the field of sculpture. The artist has asked for the entire sum to be donated to the Hajde! Foundation, a nonprofit for Kosovar artists he founded with his sister in 2014.
‘In his installations and performances, where drawings acquire a sculptural presence and the space of the imagination is literally unleashed, Petrit Halilaj reveals how experiences of pain are inextricably bound to moments of joy, tenderness, and connection’, said Carlos Basualdo, the director of the Nasher Sculpture Center.
Halilaj was born in Kostërrc, Kosovo, and forced to flee to a refugee camp in Albania when his village was destroyed by Serbian forces during the Kosovo war. At 18, he moved to Milan to study at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera before moving to Berlin in 2009 where he continued to develop his career as an artist. His work combines sculpture, drawing, text and performance to create fantastical spaces that fuse childhood wonder with the personal and political history of his homeland.
