Petrit Halilaj

Born 1986 in Kostërc, Kosovo
Lives and works between Berlin, Germany; Bozzolo, Italy; and Pristina, Kosovo

Álvaro Urbano

Born 1983 in Madrid, Spain
Lives and works in Berlin, Germany and Paris, France

White Bay Power Station

Britz & Mitte, 2023
charcoal on paper, fox costume
Commissioned by the Biennale of Sydney with generous assistance from Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen and James Lie and assistance from Accion Cultural Española
Courtesy the artists

Neither wild, native, nor domestic, foxes are a city’s strange neighbours – moving under the cover of darkness they traverse the unmapped spaces between public and private spaces stealthily yet confidently.

Inspired by the fox’s stalking nature, artists Petrit Halilaj and Álvaro Urbano engage with the blurring of human and non-human worlds through Britz & Mitte. Painted with both artists wearing hyperrealistic fox costumes and using replica fox paws as brushes, the piece is painted in soot not unlike the coal dust that would have once coated White Bay Power Station.

Making a home of the in-between spaces, as a fox does, the work muddies the boundaries between the playful and bleak, the untamed and methodical.

Using their fox alter-egos to bridge the gap between lost natural and industrial worlds, Halilaj and Urbano pay tribute to the many layered geographies of urban landscapes. Appearing as if it were a series of cave paintings, the work imagines a past which calls out through history like a fox screams in the night.

Read more about the 24th Biennale of Sydney, Ten Thousand Suns, by purchasing the catalogue here.