Adrian Paci (b, 1969) in Shkoder, is an Albanian artist who currently lives and works in Milano. From 1987 to 1991 he attended the Akademia e Arteve in Tirana, Albania. He lectured in art history and aesthetics in Shkodër from 1995 until 1997, at which time he left his home country for Milan, escaping the violence of the armed uprising that roiled Albania that year.
In 1999 Paci was among the first Albanian artists to represent their country at the Venice Biennale. In 2004 he was a resident artist at Apexart in New York. His first major solo exhibition took place the following year at MoMA PS1 in New York. That same year, he had a solo exhibition at the Moderna Museet in Stockholm and his work was featured again at the Venice Biennale. In 2009 his work appeared in the group exhibition The Storytellers at the Museum Folkwang in Essen, Germany. Since 2003 he has been a lecturer in visual arts at the Accademia Carrara di Belle Arti in Bergamo and the Università IUAV in Venice. He is founder of ART HOUSE in Shkodra, Albania.
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Statement
Paci’s position as an exile holds a central place in his oeuvre. His work frequently addresses themes of geographical separation, nostalgia, and memory, and conveys a keen sense of the mutability of life and art. Paci is known primarily for his work in performance and video, although he explores similar subjects in painting, photography, and sculpture. Characterized by a fluid interplay between performance and body art, his videos frequently focus on quotidian existence and feature members of his own family.