CURA.

The exhibition “Nous construisions un fantastique palais la nuit…” at the Giacometti Foundation, showcasing works by Petrit Halilaj in dialogue with Alberto Giacometti himself, attempts to reenact a plastic and unstable timespace: that of childhood. Not only is the show thematically rooted in the exploration of childhood, but it also embodies its unique atmosphere, conveying a sense of innocence and wonder through the agile and playful gestures that rhythm the exhibition space. In this frame, together with a selection of drawings and sculptures, Halilaj develops a series of iron sculptures conceived as spatial translations of drawings by Giacometti, d’après actual children’s drawings that the Swiss artist used to copy throughout his life.

One of Halilaj’s main sculptures stems from the drawing of a stylized house on the top of a hill, with some animal figures, a window, and a few swallows. The artist extends the poetic trajectory of the work beyond the perimeter of the building, as the swallows break through the window glass and ascend to the sky. In this simple, yet radical gesture, Halilaj captures the thrill of insubordination, exposing the pleasure of coloring outside the lines. By doing so, he also echoes a foundational dynamic of art history: that of rulemaking and rule-breaking. Disobedience is interpreted as one of the most powerful triggers of creation, ideally rooted in childhood, and continuously mediated throughout life.

The exhibition expresses how intensely drawing deals with the making and unmaking of self, intended as the very first act of imagination. For children, drawing means mediating this process, exposing the ongoing invention of their internal world as a glimpse of a construction site. For its power of shaping a secondary reality, drawing becomes the space of the negotiation of identity, a fortress constructed by the active forces of trauma and reparation. Halilaj’s homage to Giacometti highlights how making art can be read as just an extension of these dynamics. The artist turns this challenge into an inspiring, silent conversation, where the pleasure of healing through appropriation, quotation, reinvention, and disproportion flows in an extremely serious game.