Agorà
permanent sound installation
OPENArchival Platform
Adrian Paci
Progetto RIVA 2021
RIVA Project 2021
“I imagined a landscape, a boat floating on the river, a presence that is, somehow, natural for a river. I wanted to add a gesture, a noisy fracture: a generator that nurtures strings of underwater fibre optic lights with its power; a bundle of optical fibres nestled in the mysterious, muddy depths of the Arno that try to bring light to the image of the river bottom.”
Lights to serve the night (2017) testifies to Adrian Paci’s long creative stay in Florence:
as a response to the invitation of the RIVA Project, the Albanian artist initially produced a performance along the river, then a video installation with the same name.
The floating skeleton of a boat trailing filaments of light that illuminate the surrounding environment recalls the performance experience that is poetically narrated in the video.
A paddler glides his small boat along the Arno; with slow, rhythmical movements, he also stirs the luminous wires plunged into the water of the river, searching for new lights a
“I imagined a landscape, a boat floating on the river, a presence that is, somehow, natural for a river. I wanted to add a gesture, a noisy fracture: a generator that nurtures strings of underwater fibre optic lights with its power; a bundle of optical fibres nestled in the mysterious, muddy depths of the Arno that try to bring light to the image of the river bottom.”
Lights to serve the night (2017) testifies to Adrian Paci’s long creative stay in Florence:
as a response to the invitation of the RIVA Project, the Albanian artist initially produced a performance along the river, then a video installation with the same name.
The floating skeleton of a boat trailing filaments of light that illuminate the surrounding environment recalls the performance experience that is poetically narrated in the video.
A paddler glides his small boat along the Arno; with slow, rhythmical movements, he also stirs the luminous wires plunged into the water of the river, searching for new lights and hidden meanings. The luminous trail illuminates the murky, mysterious bed of the Arno as if it were a poetic archaeological exploration of the river, revealing little and concealing much.
The silent rowing is broken by the noise of a generator that activates optical fibres; a noise that,
as in others of his works, is reminiscent of the generators that lit the houses in Albania, recreating a sort
of emotional soundscape.
“Lights to serve the night is an attempt to establish a dialogue between surfaces and depths, between light and dark; a dialogue ignited by man, who does not expect to resolve it, to reveal it, to bring everything
to knowledge.”
This work was produced by the RIVA Project and was exhibited for the first time at the Museo Novecento in the exhibit devoted to Paci, which also involved the Murate. It was later presented at the National Gallery of Arts in Tirana in 2019 for the first solo organised for Adrian Paci in his country before returning to Florence
on this occasion.
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Curated by Valentina Gensini
“Dark room. The frame of a boat hangs, suspended. A cascade of light fibres flows downwards and the wires are arranged on the ground, like the tentacles of a motionless Medusa, beyond time limits.” Amongst the protagonists of the international art scene, Adrian Paci uses a straightforward language
lacking rhetoric in investigating the human condition with refined formal synthesis.
In his works migration, which he experienced in the first person, is sublimated into universal research on the indefinite nature of the human being and on the complexity of social, political and cultural dynamics intrinsic to contemporary life. The project Di queste luci si serviraÌ la notte (Lights to Serve the Night) underlines the ability to narrate our times and describes the perpetual transit of man, assimilated to the continuous flow of water and its cathartic power.
“Dark room. The frame of a boat hangs, suspended. A cascade of light fibres flows downwards and the wires are arranged on the ground, like the tentacles of a motionless Medusa, beyond time limits.” Amongst the protagonists of the international art scene, Adrian Paci uses a straightforward language
lacking rhetoric in investigating the human condition with refined formal synthesis.
In his works migration, which he experienced in the first person, is sublimated into universal research on the indefinite nature of the human being and on the complexity of social, political and cultural dynamics intrinsic to contemporary life. The project Di queste luci si serviraÌ la notte (Lights to Serve the Night) underlines the ability to narrate our times and describes the perpetual transit of man, assimilated to the continuous flow of water and its cathartic power.
This content is avaiable only in this archive.
Promoted by the MUS.E Association under the artistic direction of Valentina Gensini
In 2017, RIVA launched a series of site-specific installations, workshops, exhibitions, and encounters that enjoyed the active participation of performers, visual artists, photographers, and sound artists invited to spend a period of residency in Tuscany with the goal of elaborating on new projects around the theme of the river. For the first time, the RIVA Project did not only touch on Florence but was extended to three other Tuscan towns crossed by the Arno: Pontassieve, Pelago, and Montelupo Fiorentino. Beginning with a reflection on the environmental and cultural heritage represented by the river and its bonds with the community and the territory, the artists involved in the Project (Davide Virdis, Katrinem, Adrian Paci, Radio Papesse, Studio ++) worked in these three towns collaborating with the local Councils and the communities to give rise to new artistic projects. The project that RIVA 2017 focused on was a performance along the river, followed by an exhibit of Adrian Paci hel
In 2017, RIVA launched a series of site-specific installations, workshops, exhibitions, and encounters that enjoyed the active participation of performers, visual artists, photographers, and sound artists invited to spend a period of residency in Tuscany with the goal of elaborating on new projects around the theme of the river. For the first time, the RIVA Project did not only touch on Florence but was extended to three other Tuscan towns crossed by the Arno: Pontassieve, Pelago, and Montelupo Fiorentino. Beginning with a reflection on the environmental and cultural heritage represented by the river and its bonds with the community and the territory, the artists involved in the Project (Davide Virdis, Katrinem, Adrian Paci, Radio Papesse, Studio ++) worked in these three towns collaborating with the local Councils and the communities to give rise to new artistic projects. The project that RIVA 2017 focused on was a performance along the river, followed by an exhibit of Adrian Paci held in Florence and Pelago with the contribution of Museo Novecento and MAD Murate Art District, which displayed works by Adrian Paci associated with the theme of water as a metaphor of flow, movement, and migration. Berlin artist Katrinem was hosted in Montelupo Fiorentino for her residency under the curatorship of Tempo Reale, during which she performed and recorded her personal crossing of and ‘listening’ to the soundscape.
(Shkodër, Albania, 1969) is one of the best-known artists on today’s international art panorama. His works (paintings, installations, videos, photographs) investigate the human condition, man as a being in continual transit, and the complexity of the social, political and cultural dynamics that define our present. After studying painting at the Academy of Fine Arts of Tirana, Paci left his native Albania in 1997 for Milan, where he still lives and works. His art has been shown at solo exhibitions at numerous international venues including Rome’s Museo MAXXI (2015); MAC, Musée d’Art Contemporain of Montréal (2014); Padiglione d’Arte Contemporanea – PAC in Milan (2014); Jeu de Paume in Paris (2013); MAMCO, Musée d’art moderne et contemporain of Geneva (2013); the National Gallery of Kosovo in Pristina (2012); the Kunsthaus Zurich (2010); the Bloomberg Space in London (2010); the Center for Contemporary Art – CCA of Tel Aviv (2009); New York’s MoMA PS1 (2006); the Mo
(Shkodër, Albania, 1969) is one of the best-known artists on today’s international art panorama. His works (paintings, installations, videos, photographs) investigate the human condition, man as a being in continual transit, and the complexity of the social, political and cultural dynamics that define our present. After studying painting at the Academy of Fine Arts of Tirana, Paci left his native Albania in 1997 for Milan, where he still lives and works. His art has been shown at solo exhibitions at numerous international venues including Rome’s Museo MAXXI (2015); MAC, Musée d’Art Contemporain of Montréal (2014); Padiglione d’Arte Contemporanea – PAC in Milan (2014); Jeu de Paume in Paris (2013); MAMCO, Musée d’art moderne et contemporain of Geneva (2013); the National Gallery of Kosovo in Pristina (2012); the Kunsthaus Zurich (2010); the Bloomberg Space in London (2010); the Center for Contemporary Art – CCA of Tel Aviv (2009); New York’s MoMA PS1 (2006); the Moderna Museet of Stockholm (2005); the Contemporary Arts Museum of Houston (2005). Among the many collective showings at which he has exhibited: 7th Bi-City Biennale of UrbanismArchitecture (UABB), Nantou Old Town, Shenzhen; 14th Venice Biennale of Architecture (2014); 48th and 51st Venice Art Biennale (1999 and 2005); 15th Biennale of Sydney (2006); and the Biennale de Lyon (2009).
Adrian Paci
Water as a metaphor for movement and flow, but also an opportunity for action and reaction.
Tracking individual stories and calling to mind facts and transformations which have made recent history, Paci transcends his personal experience and addresses migration and mobility as ontological conditions, a highly-topical enquiry at a moment in history in which the very concepts of ‘home’ and ‘identity’ (cultural, political and social) are continually brought to the fore and questioned. Existence is interpreted as a continual search, as unceasing movement, and water is the taken as metaphor for human drifts and flows.
‘Di queste luci si servirà la notte,’ Adrian Paci explains, ‘began as a work centring on the Arno river, a performance action; but the focus soon shifted toward a reflection on the dialogue and the tensions that exist between light and dark, between surface and depth, between the visible and the invisible. Man’s presence seems to be the spark that ign
Water as a metaphor for movement and flow, but also an opportunity for action and reaction.
Tracking individual stories and calling to mind facts and transformations which have made recent history, Paci transcends his personal experience and addresses migration and mobility as ontological conditions, a highly-topical enquiry at a moment in history in which the very concepts of ‘home’ and ‘identity’ (cultural, political and social) are continually brought to the fore and questioned. Existence is interpreted as a continual search, as unceasing movement, and water is the taken as metaphor for human drifts and flows.
‘Di queste luci si servirà la notte,’ Adrian Paci explains, ‘began as a work centring on the Arno river, a performance action; but the focus soon shifted toward a reflection on the dialogue and the tensions that exist between light and dark, between surface and depth, between the visible and the invisible. Man’s presence seems to be the spark that ignites this dialogue without ever pretending to bring it to a conclusion.’
At the Museo Novecento, Paci is showing a video installation produced expressly for the museum in the wake of the novel action on the river in September: the huge skeleton of a boat dominates the main hall, together with a video presentation of the action from which the exhibition takes its name, a performance in which the protagonist was a small boat trailing luminous tentacles in the water, which as it rode the Arno revealed the river’s deepest, darkest dimension. Alongside these works are a selection of video productions centring on the cathartic, symbolic meaning/power of water, such as The Guardians and The Column.
On the second floor of the museum, within the spaces of the Alberto Della Ragione collection, the artist presents pictorial works, videos and photographs (among which paintings and the photographic works Turn On and Back Home) which, as they make a home in the museum rooms, establish a point-by-point repartee and a dialogue rich in suggestions with the works in the permanent collection. At Le Murate. Progetti Arte Contemporanea, the exhibition inhabits the first and third floors and offers an extensive documentation room on the ground floor. The sculpture entitled Home to Go occupies and lends a new significance to the Sala Colonne, while the cells of the former prison are given a new voice thanks with the video entitled Rasha, a delicate, ‘absolute’ work that speaks strongly and symbolically in and with this space of past pain and hopelessness. The cells on the first floor are the exhibition spaces for pictorial works and installations by Davide d’Amelio, Gianni Barelli and Lori Lako. three young artists residing in Tuscany and personally selected by Adrian Paci following the workshop held at Le Murate last year under the auspices of the Progetto Riva.
Montelupo Fiorentino, the Cioni Alderighi brickworks hosts the video installation entitled The Encounter (2011).
The former carpet factory in the San Francesco locality of Pelago is the venue for the video installation entitled One and Twenty-Four Chairs (2013).
Water as a metaphor for movement, flow, but also possibilities for action and reaction. This is the idea that Adrian Paci has developed to give life to Di queste luci si serverà la notte.
An articulated corpus of works that focuses on the themes of migration, identity and flow, explored with intensity and poetry. Tracing personal stories and recalling facts and transformations of recent history, Paci transcends personal experience and tackles migration and mobility as an ontological condition, more relevant than ever in a historical moment in which the very concepts of home and identity (cultural, political and social) are continuously recalled and questioned. Existence is interpreted as a continuous research, a perennial movement, and water becomes a metaphor for the idea of flow and flow.
Adrian Paci
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