by Adrian Paci, Italy 2017, 17'
| SUBJECT AND SCREENPLAY: Adrian Paci | EDITING: Adrian Paci, Erfort Kuke | |
| PHOTOGRAPHY: Adrian Paci | SOUND: Roberta Busechian |
Presented at Lo Schermo dell'arte 2017
The video assembles images taken from films of the funerals of various Communist dictators, held in different historical epochs, in various Communist countries, recovered from national archives and television. People stand in long lines to pay homage to a man and an idea.
The images blend seamlessly. The biers are never shown, there are no speeches, only the anonymous forms of individual mourners are framed. Their pain appears deeper than any spontaneous emotion. A low, menacing ambient noise gives voice and meaning to theimages, and leads us into a world of reality and cinematic magic that recalls Fritz Lang’s masterpiece, Metropolis. Death unleashes individual weeping and pain, which, as the author states, “was not contemplated in Communist society”: a human geography where participation and connivance are indivisible.
The images blend seamlessly. The biers are never shown, there are no speeches, only the anonymous forms of individual mourners are framed. Their pain appears deeper than any spontaneous emotion. A low, menacing ambient noise gives voice and meaning to theimages, and leads us into a world of reality and cinematic magic that recalls Fritz Lang’s masterpiece, Metropolis. Death unleashes individual weeping and pain, which, as the author states, “was not contemplated in Communist society”: a human geography where participation and connivance are indivisible.
Adrian Paci
Born in Scutari in 1969, he lives and works in Milan. The first artist to represent Albania at the Venice Biennale in 1999, he won the Pino Pascali Prize in 2007, and a prize at the Rome Quadriennale in 2008. Paci has had solo exhibition in the most important international institutions, including: Museo Novecento in Florence (2017), Chiostri di Sant’Eustorgio in Milan (2017), MAXXI in Rome (2015), MAC Montréal (2014), Trondheim Kunstmuseum (2014), MAC Milan (2013), Jeu de Paume in Paris (2013). His works are in the collections of major international museums, including MoMA, the Guggenheim, the Pompidou Center, Kunsthaus Zurich, the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, MAXXI. In 2015 he founded Art House in his hometown of Scutari where exhibitions, workshops, conversation and residences for artists, curators and intellectuals are held.
Selected Filmography
2017 The Guardians 2015 The Column 2012 The Visitors 2011 Inside the Circle 2010 Electric Blue
2017 The Guardians 2015 The Column 2012 The Visitors 2011 Inside the Circle 2010 Electric Blue
2007 Centro di Permanenza Temporanea 2006 Per Speculum