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Adrian Paci - Jeu de Paume

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# 101<br />

<strong>Adrian</strong> <strong>Paci</strong><br />

Lives in Transit<br />

Concor<strong>de</strong><br />

26 February – 12 May 2013


Home to Go (<strong>de</strong>tail), 2001<br />

Courtesy kaufmann repetto, Milan & Galerie Peter Kilchmann, Zurich<br />

Centro di Permanenza temporanea, 2007<br />

Courtesy kaufmann repetto, Milan, & Galerie Peter Kilchmann, Zurich<br />

While the context of his first works was <strong>de</strong>fined by<br />

the experience of exile, <strong>Adrian</strong> <strong>Paci</strong> (born in Shkodra,<br />

Albania, in 1969) has gradually wi<strong>de</strong>ned his scope<br />

from the personal to the collective. His projects<br />

focus on the consequences of societal conflicts and<br />

upheavals, showing the <strong>de</strong>gree to which i<strong>de</strong>ntity is<br />

shaped by socio-economic context. His works explore<br />

the feeling of loss, the assertion of i<strong>de</strong>ntity, and the<br />

mutability and displacement of human i<strong>de</strong>ntity. He<br />

draws his illustrations of the human condition from<br />

episo<strong>de</strong>s in everyday life, shifting these towards<br />

fiction and poetry by playing on the tensions between<br />

their dramatic and magical aspects. For his first<br />

retrospective in France, <strong>Paci</strong> is presenting a highly<br />

diverse selection of vi<strong>de</strong>os, installations, paintings,<br />

photographs and sculptures ma<strong>de</strong> since 1997.<br />

Illustrating his movements between different mediums,<br />

the exhibition also highlights the bold ways in which<br />

he revisits the history of art and cinema.<br />

room 1<br />

The Encounter, 2011<br />

Vi<strong>de</strong>o, colour, sound, 22’<br />

Outsi<strong>de</strong> the church of San Bartolomeo <strong>de</strong> Scicli in<br />

Noto (Sicily), people in their hundreds line up to shake<br />

hands with <strong>Adrian</strong> <strong>Paci</strong>. This everyday gesture, a<br />

sign of conviviality and sharing, is repeated in ritual<br />

fashion while the mysterious procession creates a<br />

sense of both union and tension with the local urban<br />

setting, now the theatre for this encounter between the<br />

artist and a mixed mass of individuals, as he exposes<br />

his i<strong>de</strong>ntity in relation to a specific community.<br />

room 2<br />

Vajtojca [Mourner], 2002<br />

Vi<strong>de</strong>o, colour, sound, 9’10’’<br />

Vajtojca is like a kind of rite of passage. <strong>Adrian</strong> <strong>Paci</strong><br />

stages his own funeral wake, held in accordance with<br />

the Albanian tradition. Sitting besi<strong>de</strong> his <strong>de</strong>athbed a<br />

mourner sings a compelling complaint – after which<br />

the artist rises from the bed, as if resurrected.<br />

Centro di Permanenza temporanea<br />

[Centre of Temporary Resi<strong>de</strong>nce], 2007<br />

Vi<strong>de</strong>o, colour, sound, 5’30’’<br />

A silent cortege of passengers shuffles towards<br />

a flight of boarding stairs; soon, all the steps are<br />

filled. The camera pores slowly over the grave<br />

faces of these men and women queuing to travel<br />

to an unknown <strong>de</strong>stination. The scene becomes<br />

confusing, however, when the frame wi<strong>de</strong>ns to<br />

show that there is no aeroplane at the end of these<br />

stairs. The limbo of these boar<strong>de</strong>rs symbolises<br />

the paradoxical state of permanent transition that<br />

is the daily lot of migrants.<br />

The Last Gestures, 2009<br />

4 channel vi<strong>de</strong>o installation, couleur, dimensions variable<br />

Forming a fragmented scenario around preparations<br />

for a traditional wedding, The Last Gestures<br />

captures the silent, ritualised exchanges between<br />

the future bri<strong>de</strong> and her family, resonant with the<br />

sorrow of their future separation. The characters’<br />

awareness that they are being watched makes<br />

them the conscious actors in a codified drama.


The Last Gestures, 2009<br />

Courtesy kaufmann repetto, Milan, & Galerie Peter Kilchmann, Zurich<br />

Brothers, 2010<br />

Courtesy kaufmann repetto, Milan<br />

Amplifying the symbolism of the actions and<br />

expressions, the slowing of the scenes gives<br />

the vi<strong>de</strong>o a pictorial quality.<br />

Insi<strong>de</strong> the Circle, 2011<br />

Vi<strong>de</strong>o, colour, sound, 6’33’’<br />

This work explores the complex dynamic between<br />

man and animal, as illustrated in the interaction<br />

between a trainer and a horse. In the bareness of<br />

their actions, which mix in a single expressive co<strong>de</strong>,<br />

they seem to be reviving a primitive bond, oblivious to<br />

the distinction between species. Their relation unfolds<br />

in a choreographed role-play in which the lea<strong>de</strong>r<br />

– the woman – finally attains self-<strong>de</strong>finition.<br />

room 3<br />

Secondo Pasolini (Decameron)<br />

[After Pasolini (Decameron)], 2006<br />

12 gouaches on paper mounted on canvas, 38 x 70 cm each<br />

Secondo Pasolini (Il Fiore <strong>de</strong>lle Mille e una Notte)<br />

[After Pasolini (Arabian Nights)], 2008<br />

12 gouaches on paper mounted on canvas, 38.5 x 70 cm each<br />

Secondo Pasolini (I Racconti di Canterbury)<br />

[After Pasolini (The Canterbury Tales)], 2008<br />

12 paintings in tempera on paper mounted on canvas,<br />

38 x 70 cm each<br />

These three series of paintings ma<strong>de</strong> up of isolated<br />

shots from The Trilogy of Life reflect <strong>Paci</strong>’s fascination<br />

with Pier Paolo Pasolini and his search for images<br />

that are both simple and expressive. The artist breaks<br />

down the sequences, showing how Pasolini’s images<br />

are rooted in art history, revealing the balance<br />

that exists both in the filmmaker’s work and his own<br />

between time and image, movement and duration,<br />

icon and realism.<br />

Brothers, 2010<br />

Marble mosaic on resin panel and wood, 160 x 190 x 25 cm<br />

Brothers ennobles a family image by transposing it into<br />

mosaic, endowing it with solidity and materiality. As<br />

in a number of other works, <strong>Paci</strong> reworks an image,<br />

whether personal or found, in or<strong>de</strong>r to express it<br />

in another medium, a process which allows him to<br />

appropriate a representation that otherwise elu<strong>de</strong>s him.<br />

Electric Blue, 2010<br />

Vi<strong>de</strong>o, colour, sound, 15’<br />

After the collapse of the Albanian state in the 1990s,<br />

a man tries to keep his family afloat economically by<br />

making copies of porn films. After the upset of coming<br />

across his son watching the movies, he <strong>de</strong>ci<strong>de</strong>s to<br />

reuse the vi<strong>de</strong>o cassettes to record TV reports on<br />

the war in Kosovo. A year later he realises that<br />

the sequences he thought he had eliminated are<br />

reappearing amidst the images of war.<br />

room 4<br />

Albanian Stories, 1997<br />

Vi<strong>de</strong>o, colour, sound, 7’08’’<br />

Shortly after arriving in Italy, the exiled <strong>Paci</strong> filmed<br />

his three-year-old daughter making up fairy stories<br />

for her dolls in which the usual characters in such folk<br />

narratives – a cow, a cat, a cockerel – come together<br />

surprisingly with “soldiers” and members of the


The Column, 2013<br />

Courtesy kaufmann repetto, Milan, & Galerie Peter Kilchmann, Zurich<br />

“international intervention forces.” This naïve, child’s<br />

vision conveys the particular yet universal character<br />

of conflict and the challenges of immigration and<br />

adapting to a new home.<br />

Believe Me I Am an Artist, 2000<br />

Vi<strong>de</strong>o, colour, 6’54’’<br />

Suspected of child abuse for having photographed his<br />

daughters with a reproduction of his Albanian exit visa<br />

on their backs, <strong>Paci</strong> was called into a police station<br />

in Milan. This vi<strong>de</strong>o replays the exchange that took<br />

place with the police, as he tries to make them accept<br />

that the photo is part of an artwork about expatriation.<br />

This absurd or<strong>de</strong>al is both a battle to fully establish his<br />

status as an artist and a lesson in its fragility.<br />

Home to Go [Un toit à soi], 2001<br />

9 photographs, 103 x 103 cm each<br />

In this series of photographs taken from a<br />

performance, the artist appears in his un<strong>de</strong>rwear,<br />

carrying on his back a fragment of a rooftop whose<br />

V-shaped form brings to mind the wings of a bird. A<br />

poignant metaphor for his personal experience as<br />

a migrant, Home to Go also conveys its oppressive<br />

weight. These images also evoke pictorial tradition by<br />

reviving the themes of the Carrying of the Cross and<br />

the fallen angel.<br />

The Wedding, 2001<br />

20 gouaches on paper mounted on wood, 22 x 28 cm each<br />

On the twenty panels which make up this polyptych<br />

are tempera reproductions of a traditional Albanese<br />

wedding held in the early 1990s. The hazy outline<br />

of the faces translates the gradual fragmentation<br />

and dilution of memory, while at the same time the<br />

pictorial set-up tends to elevate and give mythic<br />

resonance to these memories – a paradox which in<br />

<strong>Paci</strong>’s case evokes the experience of the exile.<br />

Piktori [Painter], 2002<br />

Vi<strong>de</strong>o, colour, sound, 3’27”<br />

At the end of the dictatorship, small, semi-clan<strong>de</strong>stine<br />

kiosks began to sprout in Albanian towns bearing a<br />

sign saying “Piktori” (painter). These artisans ma<strong>de</strong><br />

oil paintings and copies of artworks, but also turned<br />

out all kinds of forged documents. Through its portrait<br />

of one of these painters who has become a forger<br />

in or<strong>de</strong>r to survive, this work is a meditation on the<br />

artist’s role in society and the relation between<br />

artisanship and artistic activity.<br />

Turn On, 2004<br />

Colour photograph, 145 x 190 cm<br />

Turn On illustrates the exhausting daily wait of a<br />

dozen unemployed people on a square in Shkodra,<br />

hoping to find work. Icons of <strong>de</strong>sperate social<br />

conditions, these men nevertheless keep going,<br />

hoping against hope for better days, waiting in the<br />

flickering light of a hand-held bulb.<br />

Klodi, 2005<br />

Vi<strong>de</strong>o, colour, sound, 40’<br />

In a story that veers between tragedy and absurdity,<br />

an Albanian by the name of Klodi recounts the


oom 5 room 4 room 1 room 2 room 3<br />

entrance<br />

<strong>de</strong>tails of his travels to Italy, Mexico and the<br />

United States, impelled by political and economic<br />

necessities. This reassembling of the parts of his<br />

life, which connects with <strong>Paci</strong>’s own experience of<br />

emigration, also stages the tension between the two<br />

poles of tragedy and play.<br />

Passages, 2009<br />

Acrylic and watercolour on plaster and terracotta,<br />

30.5 x 23.5 x 7.6 cm<br />

Passages, 2010<br />

2 watercolours on paper, 100 x 70 cm each<br />

The Passages series constitutes a collection of<br />

“snapshots” taken from vi<strong>de</strong>o or film sequences<br />

ranging from TV news to archive footage of<br />

traditional Albanian rituals. By pulling a scene out of<br />

the flux of images, <strong>Paci</strong> tries to transfer it to a state<br />

of stability, but without taking away its status as a<br />

moving image, in or<strong>de</strong>r to keep it in a suspen<strong>de</strong>d<br />

state. The time of the image is confoun<strong>de</strong>d with that<br />

of the pictorial act, taking on a new dimension.<br />

room 5<br />

The Column, 2013<br />

Vi<strong>de</strong>o, colour, sound, 25’40’’<br />

Produced with the participation of the <strong>Jeu</strong> <strong>de</strong> <strong>Paume</strong><br />

Ma<strong>de</strong> specially for the exhibition, The Column<br />

articulates a reflection around the notion of<br />

productive efficiency which becomes a pretext for a<br />

poetic journey between East and West. This vi<strong>de</strong>o<br />

shows the career of a block of marble, from quarrying<br />

in China to the maritime journey during which<br />

sculptors transform it into a Roman column. The image<br />

of this factory-boat illustrates an extremely con<strong>de</strong>nsed<br />

economic strategy, in which <strong>de</strong>livery and production<br />

are parallel processes. As a counterpart to the vi<strong>de</strong>o<br />

on show in the gallery, the column itself will be on<br />

show in the Tuileries gar<strong>de</strong>n outsi<strong>de</strong>.<br />

­–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––­–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––­–––––––––––––––––––<br />

related events<br />

z Young Visitor’s Tuesday Tours<br />

gui<strong>de</strong>d tour of the exhibition with the artist<br />

and curator Marta Gili<br />

Tuesday 26 February, 6pm<br />

z Children First!<br />

visit and workshop “Déplacements et transformations”<br />

[Movements and Transformations]<br />

Saturday 30 March and 27 April, 3.30pm<br />

z talk on and around the exhibition<br />

by Maurizio Lazzarato, sociologist and philosopher<br />

Tuesday 23 April, 7pm<br />

z publication: <strong>Adrian</strong> <strong>Paci</strong>. Transit, texts by Adam<br />

Budak, Edi Muka, Edna Moshenson, Emanuela<br />

De Cecco, Éric <strong>de</strong> Chassey and an interview<br />

with the artist by Marta Gili and Marie Fraser,<br />

English/French, co-edition <strong>Jeu</strong> <strong>de</strong> <strong>Paume</strong>/Musée<br />

d’art contemporain <strong>de</strong> Montréal/Mousse Publishing,<br />

160 pages, 23.5 x 28.5 cm, 35 €


<strong>Jeu</strong> <strong>de</strong> <strong>Paume</strong> – Concor<strong>de</strong><br />

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– –––––––––––––––––––<br />

exhibitions<br />

26 February – 12 May 2013<br />

z Laure Albin Guillot (1879–1962),<br />

the Question of Classicism<br />

z <strong>Adrian</strong> <strong>Paci</strong>. Lives in Transit<br />

z Satellite Programme 6, A Spoken Word<br />

Exhibition. Suite for Exhibition(s) and Publication(s),<br />

First Movement<br />

23 October 2012 – March 2014<br />

z Espace virtuel, Print Error: Publishing<br />

in the Digital Age<br />

forthcoming exhibitions<br />

28 May – 1 September 2013<br />

z Lorna Simpson<br />

z Ahlam Shibli<br />

z Satellite Programme 6, Suite for Exhibition(s)<br />

and Publication(s), Third Movement<br />

practical information<br />

1, Place <strong>de</strong> la Concor<strong>de</strong>, 75008 Paris<br />

acces via the Tuileries Gar<strong>de</strong>ns, Rue <strong>de</strong> Rivoli entrance<br />

www.jeu<strong>de</strong>paume.org<br />

http://lemagazine.jeu<strong>de</strong>paume.org<br />

information +33 (0)1 47 03 12 50<br />

Tuesday (last opening) 11am–9pm<br />

Wednesday to Sunday 11am–7pm<br />

closed Monday and 1 May<br />

z exhibitions: admission: €8.50; concessions: €5.50<br />

free admission to the exhibitions of the Satellite Programme<br />

Young Visitor’s Tuesday: free admission for stu<strong>de</strong>nts<br />

and visitors un<strong>de</strong>r 26 every last Tuesday of the month<br />

from 5pm to 9pm<br />

z gui<strong>de</strong>d tours and workshops: free admission<br />

on presentation of the exhibition ticket of the day<br />

Tours for individual visitors with gui<strong>de</strong>s<br />

from the <strong>Jeu</strong> <strong>de</strong> <strong>Paume</strong><br />

Wednesday and Saturday at 12.30pm<br />

Family Tours<br />

Saturday at 3.30pm (except last Saturday of the month)<br />

by reservation on +33 (0)1 47 03 12 41/ren<strong>de</strong>zvousenfamille@jeu<strong>de</strong>paume.org<br />

Children First!<br />

visit and workshop for 7 to 11 year olds<br />

every last Saturday of the month at 3.30pm<br />

by reservation on +33 1 47 03 04 95/lesenfantsdabord@jeu<strong>de</strong>paume.org<br />

Young Visitors’ Tuesday Tours<br />

every last Tuesday of the month at 6pm<br />

z talks: free admission on a first-come, first‐served basis<br />

<strong>Jeu</strong> <strong>de</strong> <strong>Paume</strong> – extramural<br />

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– –––––––––––––––––––<br />

exhibition<br />

24 November 2012 – 26 May 2013<br />

z Lartigue, Wi<strong>de</strong>-Eyed Won<strong>de</strong>r (1894–1986)<br />

Château <strong>de</strong> Tours<br />

25 Avenue André-Malraux, 37000 Tours<br />

information +33 (0)2 47 70 88 46<br />

Tuesday to Friday<br />

2pm–6pm<br />

Saturday and Sunday 2.15pm–6pm<br />

closed Monday<br />

admission: €3; concessions: €1.50<br />

gui<strong>de</strong>d tours: Saturday at 3pm<br />

forthcoming exhibitions<br />

21 March – 19 May 2013<br />

z Satellite Programme 6, An Exhibition Without Texts.<br />

Suite for Exhibition(s) and Publication(s), Second<br />

Movement<br />

Maison d’Art Bernard Anthonioz<br />

16, Rue Charles-VII, 94130 Nogent-sur-Marne<br />

www.maba.fnagp.fr<br />

information 01 48 71 90 07<br />

daily<br />

12 h-18 h<br />

closed Tuesday and public holidays<br />

free admission<br />

22 June – 3 November 2013<br />

z Bruno Réquillart<br />

Château <strong>de</strong> Tours<br />

free admission<br />

The <strong>Jeu</strong> <strong>de</strong> <strong>Paume</strong> is subsidized by<br />

the Ministry of Culture and Communication.<br />

It is supported by NEUFLIZE VIE, its principal partner.<br />

Les Amis du <strong>Jeu</strong> <strong>de</strong> <strong>Paume</strong> contributes to its activities.<br />

This exhibition has been co-produced by the <strong>Jeu</strong> <strong>de</strong> <strong>Paume</strong>,<br />

Paris, the Musée d’art contemporain <strong>de</strong> Montréal and<br />

the PAC Padiglione d’Arte Contemporanea, Milan.<br />

In partnership with:<br />

PARIS art<br />

The Encounter, 2011<br />

Courtesy kaufmann repetto, Milan, & Galerie Peter Kilchmann, Zurich<br />

All photos: © <strong>Adrian</strong> <strong>Paci</strong><br />

© <strong>Jeu</strong> <strong>de</strong> <strong>Paume</strong>, Paris, 2013<br />

Curators of the exhibition:<br />

<strong>Adrian</strong> <strong>Paci</strong><br />

Marta Gili, <strong>Jeu</strong> <strong>de</strong> <strong>Paume</strong>, Paris<br />

Marie Fraser, Musée d’art contemporain <strong>de</strong> Montréal

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