| adrian paci
Spaces in-between
07 IX - 21 X 2007
opening of the exhibition:
Thursday, September 6th 2007
6.00pm
The exhibition entitled Spaces in-between is the first show of Adrian Paci?s works in Poland. The exhibition includes videos which present the artist?s autobiographical story combined with more universal narration. Adrian Paci, the artist of Albanian origin, lives and works in Milan. His childhood and adolescence, which the artist spent in his homeland, together with emigration to Italy, had a strong influence on him, and the decline of communism in Albania was a turning point for him as an artist. His artistic debut in the beginning of the 90ties and the subject matter of his works were the reasons why Paci was included in the group of artists whom Edi Muka calls ?the generation of transformation?. Among the films presented in Bunkier Sztuki there will be Albanian Stories (1997) which shows the artist?s three-year-old daughter telling stories to her dolls. Seemingly innocent story takes a stronger overtone when it is interspersed with the girl?s memories from the war in Albania. Believe me, I?m an artist (2000) was a result of Paci?s personal experience. The film reconstructs a conversation with the artist which took place at a police station in Italy after a photography laboratory, where he developed pictures of his daughter for a project entitled Exit (1999), denounced him as an author of child pornography pictures. Piktori (2002) is concerned with the problem of the artist?s place in society, pointing at the same time to economic problems in Albania, which - together with Moldavia and Serbia ? is one of the poorest countries in Europe, where about 50% of gross domestic product is still produced in grey area. It presents an anonymous painter who talks about his life and his work. To earn his living he has to use his talent to forge diplomas, documents, or labels of famous brands. The film entitled Turn On (2004), shown at the Venice Biennial in 2005, recorded by the artist in his home town Szkodry, shows a group of unemployed people lighting dark streets with electricity generator. Such generators are very common in Albanian landscape because electricity is imported from neighbouring Macedonia and there are constant breaks in electricity supplies due to recurring energetic crises. In the exhibition there will also be presented a video entitled Klodi (2005) where the title character is seated in front of the camera and for 40 minutes tells a story of his experiences as an illegal immigrant. After the exhibitions of Shahram Entekhabi, Wojtek Dorszuk, Wael Shawky, Olaf Breuning and Jasper Alvaer with Isabela Grosseová, which took place in Bunkier Sztuki, Adrian Paci introduces new kind of subject matter into the Transculture project. Next to the analysis of identity in the period of crisis, the problem of nomadism connected with forgetting one?s roots and breaking family relations, Paci?s works include questions on the role of biography in artist?s works: the way in which it can be used, the aims of such usage and its limits, or the influence of the experience of emigration on art. |
