Iria Candela

This exploration of Petrit Halilaj’s site-specific installation reflects the artist’s personal experience as a refugee of war and the universal hopes and fears captured in children’s drawings 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. Published by The Metropolitan Museum of Art/Distributed by Yale University PressExhibition schedule:The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (April 30–October 27, 2024)

Features new analysis of Héctor Zamora’s oeuvre alongside a discussion of his topical, site-specific work created for the 2020 Roof Garden Commission at The Met The work of Mexican artist Héctor Zamora engages with urban or built environments, both disrupting and rearticulating the viewer’s interaction with the site. Lattice Detour, his most recent intervention, commissioned by The Met for its Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Roof Garden, is fabricated from terracotta bricks produced in Mexico and transported to New York. This compact volume, the first book in English on Zamora, presents images and analysis of the new artwork, setting its creation in the context of his past work. An interview with Zamora sheds further light on his formation as an artist, his process, and his inspirations. Published by The Metropolitan Museum of Art/Distributed by Yale University PressExhibition Schedule:The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (August 29–December 7, 2020)

Despite the growing importance of contemporary art from Latin America in the last two decades, no book exists that thoroughly explore this phenomenon. Art in Latin America aims to fill that gap and to offer the reader an interpretative frame with which to understand the importance of contemporary art in this complex and diverse region. The book covers the vibrant Latin American art scene since 1990 through a detailed study of new and unconventional art practices. It offers an original and in-depth interpretation of more than a hundred works in the fields of sculpture, installation, performance, video and public art. The author focuses particularly on disruptive and politically committed art works that challenge the traditional forms of 20th-century art and recognise the need to strengthen freedom of expression and processes of democratisation in Latin America. The book examines the interaction of form and content in works by Latin American-born or based artists, including Gabriel Orozco, Doris Salcedo, Ernesto Neto, Francis Alys, Jorge Macchi, Santiago Sierra, Carlos Garaicoa, Jennifer Allora and Guillermo Calzadilla. It also studies recent works by emerging artists including Rivane Neuenschwander, Javier Tellez, Donna Conlon, David Zink Yi, Hector Zamora and Regina Jose Galindo.