Abetare Painting (Mountains, Cat and Flower), 2025

Abetare Painting (Mountains, Cat and Flower), 2025, Bronze, patina, found wooden school table from Kosovo, 143 × 253 × 15 cm

The latest versions of Abetare were on display at the Met’s highly anticipated 2024 Roof Garden Commission in New York and at the Fondation Giacometti in Paris in 2025. These metal sculptures are inspired by children’s doodles, drawings and graffiti found on desks at the school Halilaj attended in Runik, Kosovo, as well as schools in Albania and countries from the former Yugoslavia, which are now undergoing significant cultural and sociopolitical change. In an iteration of the Abetare works, the desks themselves become a ground upon which bronze elements interact.

Abetare was displayed for the first time on the occasion of Halilaj’s solo exhibition at Kölnischer Kunstverein in April 2015. In 2017, Abetare (Classroom), the only other immersive, large-scale Abetare installation to feature the original desks, was exhibited at the Second Edition of the Mario Merz Prize in Turin, where his presentation won the prize.