Press release
The Embassy of Italy in Turkey, the Embassy of Albania and the Italian Institute of Culture in Istanbul
are proud to present
Adrian Paci
The Column
promoted by
The Italian Institute of Culture in Istanbul and AlbumArte
curated by
Gabi Scardi and Maria Rosa Sossai
14 September 2013 – 12 noon
One-off screening
Teatro della Casa d’Italia, Italian Cultural Institute, Istanbul
Meşrutiyet Caddesi no:75
Tepebaşı, Beyoğlu
34430 İstanbul
The Italian Embassy in Turkey, in collaboration with the Albanian Embassy, invites you to the screening of Adrian Paci’s video The Column (2013) that will take place on Saturday, September 14, 2013 at 12 noon in the theatre of the Italian Cultural Institute in Istanbul.
The event, promoted by the Italian Cultural Institute and AlbumArte, will be attended by the artist Adrian Paci, the Albanian and the Italian Ambassadors in Turkey, the art critics and curators Beral Madra, Gabi Scardi and Maria Rosa Sossai, and Cristina Cobianchi, president of AlbumArte .
The video illustrates how a block of marble, extracted from a Chinese quarry, is loaded onto a cargo ship where it gets carved until it becomes a column in the classical style. The destination of the ship is unknown, but the artefact, with its Corinthian capital, evokes both classical culture and Europe.
The image of the ship crossing the sea and from which the raw material emerges transformed into a precious artefact, is related to a fantastical idea of the voyage; it also recalls the wide-spread economic strategies of today’s society, trading and the dramatic reality of the ship-factories, the meaning of work, the value of classical culture represented through one of its emblematic elements, the column. Despite the essential character of the images, Paci shows the accuracy of the gaze, the definition of the details, intense close-ups, the fragments of daily life on the ship. The journey by sea assumes an epic nature while the image of the sun rays that at the end of the video caress the column sanctions its symbolic dimension.
In this video, as in other works by the artist, the meaning comes from the co-existence of circumstance and universality, joint participation and distance, poetry and criticism: a criticism that is a continuous statement on the fundamental value of dignity and a dignity that can only be subjective, collective and rooted in society at the same time. So, in this as well as in other works, we see him linger on faces, looks, with an attention that is not born out of the desire to describe something, but that is an act of respect for the individual. Through his work and his personal history Paci expresses the profound changes of our time: he tells of journeys and migrations, of the global bearings and of the intercultural dynamics that affect us all.
The video was selected for the 3rd Thessaloniki Biennale of Contemporary Art “MAKE IT NEW-OLD INTERSECTIONS» 18 September – 18 December 2011 Thessaloniki, Greece
Adrian Paci The Column, 2013
video, color, sound, 25’40”
Courtesy: kaufmann repetto, Milano & Galerie Peter Kilchmann, Zürich
Produced with the contribution of: Jeu de Paume, Paris , PAC Padiglione d’Arte Contemporanea, Milano , Trondheim Kunstmuseum , Röda Sten Konsthall, Göteborg , nctm e e l’arte, Milano & Unicredit Milano.
Theatre of Italian Istitute of Culture in Istanbul, Me?rutiyet Caddesi no:75 Tepeba??, Beyo?lu 34430 ?stanbul
September 14, 2013 – 12 noon
One-off screening
Curated by Gabi Scardi e Maria Rosa Sossai
Project by AlbumArte Rome Italy
Info : Istituto Italiano di Cultura di Istanbul, info.iicistanbul@esteri.it
Press office Anatolia Group, pr@anatoliagrup.com.tr
Info Italy AlbumArte, info@albumarte.org
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