Adrian Paci
From an account of dispossession and exile through a ritual of belonging and identification down to the mechanics of self-empowerment and emancipation; from the innocence of childhood towards the social initiation and down to a mature voice of a political resonance, the oeuvre of Adrian Paci unfolds the narrative of displacement and loss. Paci sets a prophetic mise-en-scène for a messianic message of political optimism and hope; its urban stage is a polyphonic assembly, a parliament of sorts, an ultimate test for an alerted political subject at the rise. As a society in a state of apathy and
hypnotic awaiting recites a litany of unrealized possibilities and wasted chances, Paci’s critical examination of potentialities, shuttered by the oppressive system and its restrictions, and his anatomy of political desire operates as both an accusation and a warning for the future to emerge. Paci is a story-teller and an image-maker. Moving images dialogues with the still image of the photographic series as well as with the image, captured within the frame of a painting, the artist’s primary skill and vocation, prove Paci’s formal versatility and his interest in a variety of expressions and languages. The motifs, known from the videos reappear, translated into other forms, while simultaneously the cinematic quality gains a painterly hue; Paci freely maneuvers in-between the media, exploring the materiality as well as the sensual aspects of a medium as a form of speech. Each work is an exercise in relationality and mediation. Applying theatrical methods of distancing and proximity, the artist makes the viewer critically aware and attentive as to what he or she sees and looks at. This is Paci’s own private ritual which rehearses the politics of gestures in an alchemical, self-referential transfer of images, their meanings, forms and contexts.
Quoted from the press release of the exhibition: “Prova,” curated by Adam Budak. National Gallery of Arts, Tirana, Sept. 20–Dec. 21, 2019.more