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September 16, 2005 > Arts & Entertainment > Conceptually brilliant exhibit concentrates on culture

Conceptually brilliant exhibit concentrates on culture

By Lizzie Polek | For the Thresher

World-famous Albanian artist Adrian Paci opened his first exhibition in the U.S. at the Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston this summer. Perspectives 147: Adrian Paci features two videos, a series of drawings in watercolor and two larger photographs that focus primarily on social issues in his home country.

Born in 1969 in Shroder, a 2400-year-old village, Paci was originally trained as a painter and later broadened his techniques to include photography and film, as demonstrated in Perspectives 147. Paci belongs to a group of modern Albanian artists from the 1990s who portrayed the country’s radical social and political strife at the time, focusing on Albania’s people as they lived through the collapse of communism and civil war, and later chaos and anarchy. In 1997, he moved to Italy in reaction to this hardship, so admiring Paci’s work, even within cold museum walls, is an experience fraught with emotion and personality.

PilgrIMAGE (2005), the more recent of the two films featured in Perspectives 147, makes its U.S. premiere and follows the story of a painting entitled The Virgin Mary of Shkodra. In the 15th century, the painting mysteriously disappeared from Shkoder (then called Shkodra), only to resurface in an Italian church near Rome. Although the painting has remained in Italy, Albanians still hope and believe a return to Shkoder lies in its future. In his video, Paci cleverly envisions such a return by projecting the image of the painting, still in an Italian church, on a large screen in Shkoder. The image of the icon itself thus makes a sort of pilgrimage back to its motherland.

Despite this brilliant concept, the 13-minute PilgrIMAGE proceeds sluggishly. Paci slowly zooms in on the contrasting individual faces of Albanians who have congregated to watch the unmoving image of the Virgin Mary, and he slowly zooms out to show panning shots of the entire crowd. These shots are measured and dragging, but the film provides an ingenious glimpse of the faces of Albanians and one of their cultural legends.

Paci’s second featured video, The Weeper (Vajtojka) (2002), also filmed in Shkoder, demonstrates the Albanian ritual of mourning the deceased, but actually mourns Paci himself. Paci wears a dark suit, or shroud, composedly lies on a bed and is attended by a hired professional who sits on a chair next to him. Her exceedingly morose song recognizes the grief of Paci’s family as well as his own exile. After the lament finishes, Paci rises, embraces the woman and exits to bizarrely chipper music. With this video, Paci the artist mourns the death of an individual — the Paci who lived in Albania — and his nation.

Paci’s work has previously been shown in major cities in Germany, Sweden and Spain and at the Tate Modern in London. Later this year, Perspectives 147 will move to the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

The CAMH also has some of Paci’s paintings and photographs making their American debut. Twelve small, rectangular watercolors depict scenes from films by writer and director Pier Paolo Pasolini, who influenced Paci’s work. In one of his videos, Pasolini traces the life of Christ; this film is widely considered one of the greatest on-screen depictions of Christ’s life, and Paci paints these scenes in his watercolors. Mysterious photographs show rubble beside two chapel altars, as if the locations are enduring war or construction.

By visiting this exhibit, audiences journey to Albania and witness the moving culture and its expressive residents. For those with a passion for societal and cultural depictions and traditions, Perspectives 147: Adrian Paci is a must-see.

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