Adrian Paci

Adrian Paci: Lost Communities, 2019
Cristina Cannelli, Ledia Dushi, Andreas Hoffer, Séamus Kealy, Kathrin Rhomberg, Florian Steininger

Kunsthalle Krems, Hirmer Verlag Munich

Publisher: Kunsthalle Krems, Hirmer Verlag Munich.

CHF 40.00

Hardcover, 23.5 x 29 cm, 207 pages

 

Adrian Paci emigrated from Albania to Italy with his family in the late 1990s, escaping the political unrest of the Albanian uprising. The very personal experiences of flight, of giving up shared communities and having to search for a new identity, have left their mark on his artistic work. Over the past twenty years, those themes have found expression in the form of videos, photos, paintings, and sculptures that interpret these existential experiences. This book presents reproductions of a range of the iconic works that have earned Paci a global reputation, many of which center on themes of uncertainty. In one of his most well-known video works, Centro di permanenza temporanea (2007), a group of refugees wait on a set of stairs on an airplane tarmac--yet no airplane arrives. In the sculpture Home to Go (2001), a man carries the roof of a house on his shoulders. These stunning works and the accompanying essays take up the topical political subjects underlying Paci's art and examine his oeuvre from various angles, while an interview with Paci and some of his personal poems round out the volume.