Centro di permanenza temporanea

source: julietartmagazine

Immigrazione, lavoro e continuo movimento come metafora della condizione umana: sono queste le tematiche principali della mostra di Adrian Paci “Vite in transito” presente presso il PAC – Padiglione di Arte Contemporanea di Milano fino a lunedì 6 gennaio 2014.

Le opere in mostra, siano esse pittoriche, fotografiche o cinematografiche, prodotte tra la metà degli anni Novanta e oggi, sono l’esatta rappresentazione della volontà di Paci di comprendere e raccontare i fatti del presente. Fin dall’inizio il percorso dell’artista si è infatti focalizzato sulle trasformazioni politiche e umane avvenute soprattutto nell’ex blocco sovietico dopo il crollo del Muro di Berlino. Tuttavia, la ricerca artistica di Paci oltrepassa i confini della storia per rivolgere l’attenzione a tematiche universali, ponendo al centro dei suoi lavori la figura umana e i suoi gesti rituali e sociali, come per esempio quello di stringere la mano.
Due opere presenti presenti in mostra al PAC meritano un’attenzione particolare. Nell’opera The Column si parla di spostamenti e di confronto tra culture. Il video descrive l’estrazione di un blocco di marmo da una cava cinese e la successiva trasformazione. La sua fabbricazione avviene in mare per mano di operai che viaggiano all’interno di una nave-officina e il viaggio da Oriente ad Occidente si conclude idealmente all’interno dell’ambiente museale, dov’ è possibile ammirare il risultato del percorso: la colonna lavorata in stile classico. Il video solleva interrogativi che riguardano il concetto di autenticità culturale e la modalità di trasmissione di prodotti e idee, e avanza una metafora sull’esistenza, che vede l’arco vitale come un continuo cambiamento.

Centro di permanenza temporanea è un video ambientato all’aereoporto di San Josè, in California, che riprende alcuni immigrati in attesa di essere rimpatriati su quella che sembrerebbe essere la scala di un aereo. Lentamente, le scale si riempiono di persone, uomini e donne, ma l’aereo, che tarda ad arrivare, in realtà nell’opera non c’è. Il senso di sospensione, di attesa, d’immobilità e di speranza è evidente e propone una riflessione sui temi dell’immigrazione, dell’accoglienza e della geopolitica.
Le vicende che hanno riguardato i Paesi Balcanici, e in particolare l’Albania, terra d’origine dell’artista, sono al centro del suo modo di operare. È attraverso storie umane vere e a lui familiari che Paci riesce a trarre il significato della vita stessa, toccando i sentimenti più profondi.

Tra le prime opere di Paci, è il video After the wall there are some walls, nel quale l’artista attraversa il canale di Otranto con una piccola barca, raccogliendo acqua di mare con una tanica, ricordando le migrazioni dei suoi concittadini a bordo di tante imbarcazioni di fortuna. Le immagini vengono poi proiettate su una parete con appese delle taniche piene d’acqua, riuscendo a far intendere la separazione storico geografica dall’evento, e riproponendosi il tentativo di annullarla.
Adrian Paci ha dato vita anche a una serie di lavori che hanno saputo interpretare la continuità tra la dimensione interiore e i luoghi lasciati, suscitando un profondo senso di nostalgia. Con la serie Back Home ad esempio mette in relazione ritratti fotografici personali e di gruppo, eseguiti in studio, su un fondale rappresentante i loro luoghi d’origine, facendo dialogare così passato e presente.
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source: welldesignedandbuilt

Centro di Permanenza Temporanea (literally Center for Temporary Permanence) sounds like a rather poetic oxymoron, being a place were illegal immigrants (“illegal aliens” according to the US immigration law) are kept waiting to be rejected to their country of origin. A very difficult undertaken indeed, this “repatriation”, given the increasing dimension of the migration phenomena towards the southern coasts of Italy. Therefore most of these “illegals” stay there as long as they succedd to escape and go back in the society’s grey zone of sans papier.

More pragmatically Google’s translation for Centro di permanenza temporanea is “detention center” and as a matter of fact their name has been changed by the italian law in Centro di Identificazione ed Espulsione (CIE) reflecting the recent evolution in migration policy matters.

This picture is a frame of Adrian Paci’s famous video Centro di Permanenza Temporanea (2007) and shows a bunch of people waiting on a ladder in an airport runway, looking at a fighter-bomber passing by. To learn more about Adrian Paci watch this extract from a beautiful documentary by Alessandra Galletta, broadcasted by Babel TV, the first Sky Channel dedicated to life of migrants in Italy.
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source: frieze

Artists’ depictions of workers have historically produced powerful imagery. Gustave Courbet’s painting of proletariat subjects, The Stonebreakers (1849–50), Dorothea Lange’s iconic Migrant Mother (1936) from the Farm Security Administration’s photography programme, and Lewis Hine’s images of Empire State Building construction workers perched thousands of feet in the air, are but a few examples of art works that have critiqued, glorified or agitated against labour conditions. Set in relief against this rich and weighty backdrop, ‘The Workers’, at MASS MoCA, assembles 25 contemporary artists who engage with the status of labour in this post-Fordist, late capitalist, increasingly globalized moment.

Originally curated by Carla Herrera-Prats as a smaller-scale project at the Sala de Arte Público Siqueiros in Mexico City, the former home of muralist and labour activist David Alfaro Siqueiros, ‘The Workers’ has been expanded at MASS MoCA (whose buildings were previously occupied by the Sprague Electric Company). Once a bustling industrial site, the North Adams community faced economic devastation when Sprague closed its US operations in 1985. A spin-off company, Commonwealth Sprague, moved manufacturing to Mexico and eventually China. As such, the exhibition’s current location becomes a stand-in for sites where labour has been contentiously outsourced to the lowest bidder.

The video Centro di Permanenza Temporanea (Temporary Detention Centre, 2007) by Albanian artist Adrian Paci generates a series of indelible images that capture the pervasive insecurity and anxiety that comes with this need for incessant mobility. Initially, we see a group of would-be workers boarding a mobile staircase on an airport runway. The stairs become increasingly crowded, and as the camera pans out, it becomes apparent that the group are unattached to any vehicle – waiting for transportation that never arrives. Immigrant day labourers, some illegal, were cast in this piece shot in San Jose – they themselves trapped in a perpetual state of employment uncertainty. The contradictory state of being permanently temporary is aptly communicated by the literal translation of the video’s title, which is borrowed from the absurdly named Italian detention centers that house illegal immigrants and refugees. Poignant yet uneasy, the artist’s concern for the plight of his subjects is evident, but Paci is also complicit in the system he critiques by momentarily employing these workers, only to subsequently send them on their way.

Oliver Ressler’s two-channel video, Socialism Failed, Capitalism is Bankrupt. What Comes Next? (2010) examines disenfranchized traders at a large market in Armenia. Stills of abandoned factories are juxtaposed with low-wage earners who detail the hardships and scarcity of social services that have come with the Soviet Union’s dissolution. While the aim of Ressler’s work is admirable in that it gives these workers a platform to express themselves, the piece represents forms of didactic, awareness-raising art that often seems like well-intentioned acknowledgements of the context we all share, but ultimately manifest as a type of inadequate journalism.

Further investigations into marginalized members of society include Anthony Hernandez’s photographic series, ‘Landscapes for the Homeless’ (1989–2007). Focusing on a group largely defined by their lack of occupation, Hernandez reveals the domestic labour involved in these makeshift habitats: outdoor living spaces are constructed from scraps of carpet, a wood plank acts as a dining table, and a pair of pants hangs on a clothesline fastened between bushes. Through withholding a full view of his subjects, Hernandez offers us a vantage point that disallows an invasive gaze. Looking at poverty is a curious form of voyeurism, however Hernandez avoids objectifying his subjects and imposing narrative through a muteness – a refusal to deliver direct and maximum meaning. He portrays these displaced persons with a sparse, stripped down pathos. The ‘for’ in the title of this series (rather than ‘of’) is pointed, suggesting the artist’s intention to produce images that advocate for the cause of their absent protagonists.

Claire Beckett takes selected portraits of soldiers during basic training and deployment in order to critique the socio-economic conditions that place them into combat, as well as their status as disposable members of society. The photograph Private Rebecca Hill, Fort Jackson, SC (2006) shows a delicate but stern young woman returning the camera’s gaze from beneath a helmet and oversized glasses. Standing in a tentative contrapposto, her small features are overwhelmed by the rifle, boots and baggy camouflage that comprise her uniform. Private Nicholas Greene, Buzzard’s Bay, MA (2006) similarly shows a pensive officer with teenage acne, lit in dramatic chiaroscuro. There is a startling disjunction between the youth of Beckett’s subjects and the severity of their jobs; between the idea of a ‘soldier’ that exists as part of our collective, popular imaginary, and the unromantic, stark reality of who these war workers actually are.

In his series ‘Communist Party USA’ (2007), Russian-born artist Yevgeniy Fiks paints portraits of members of the New Left devoid of romantic, heroic or propagandist trappings. In a depiction of New York Education Coordinator Adam Tenney, a poster of Lenin hangs prominently in the background. The iconic, monumental head of the revolutionary leader appears exaggerated, in contrast with the candid and humble portrait of Tenney who, with a beard and buttoned pullover, hardly looks like our idea of a radical political figure. Similarly, Communist Party member Dan Margolis is portrayed casually, wearing an Old Navy shirt. A Dell computer box is visible behind him, as well as an American flag and banners bearing the Ho Chi Minh Communist Youth Union logo, showing a complicated and somewhat uncomfortable mixture of competing influences.

Much of the work on display in ‘The Workers’ is invested in championing labour rights, attempts to end radical inequalities in society, and exposing vulnerabilities to geopolitical struggles. Largely absent from the exhibition’s scope is a self-reflexive awareness of the artists’ own positions as labourers, the prevalent model being that of the freelancer who is perpetually at work. Furthermore, this changing nature of work is scantly addressed on a larger scale – the increasing loss of separation between personal life and work time in all spheres. Overall, the possibility of the pursuit of happiness in labour seems to have been demoted to the wish for stability and basic necessities. However, ‘The Workers’ attempts to strip away propaganda, advertising and media imagery in the hope that by providing space for reflection, the potential to mobilize alternatives will follow.
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source: jeudepaumeorg

Le travail d’Adrian Paci (né en 1969 en Albanie) met en exergue l’un des paradoxes de l’intelligence humaine, qui consiste à rendre compte de la réalité à travers l’irréalité. Souvent inspiré par des sujets qui lui sont proches, par des histoires issues de sa vie quotidienne, Adrian Paci les fait glisser poétiquement vers une fiction, qui, à son tour, produit une ou plusieurs réalités plus larges. L’exposition présentée au Jeu de Paume rassemble des œuvres très diverses (vidéos, installations, peintures, photographies et sculptures) réalisées depuis 1997 et montre les nombreux chassés croisés qu’il opère entre ces différents modes d’expression et médiums.

Son travail se caractérise également par sa capacité à mettre en tension ce qui est conflictuel et ce qui est merveilleux. Avec un certain romantisme, il est conscient des enjeux qui existent entre la création artistique contemporaine et de possibles formes de résistance.

En 1997, Adrian Paci fuit les violentes émeutes en Albanie pour se réfugier, avec sa famille, en Italie. À son arrivée dans ce pays, il abandonne temporairement la peinture et la sculpture, pour adopter la vidéo, explorant ainsi de nouveaux langages et les moyens d’expression cinématographiques. Son expérience de l’exil, le choc de la séparation et l’adaptation à un nouveau lieu définissent le contexte de ses premières vidéos, à travers lesquelles il tente de retrouver les racines de son passé.

“Le fait d’être à la croisée des chemins, à la frontière de deux identités séparées, se retrouve dans toutes mes productions cinématographiques.”
A. P.

Progressivement, Adrian Paci se détache de son vécu personnel pour traiter de l’histoire collective, dans des projets qui mettent l’accent sur les conséquences des conflits et des révolutions sociales, et qui révèlent comment l’identité est conditionnée par le contexte socioéconomique. Travaillant avec des acteurs non professionnels, des hommes et des femmes dans leurs difficultés, il explore la plupart des problèmes existentiels et sociaux de notre époque : migration, mobilité, perte, déplacement, mondialisation, identité culturelle, nostalgie, mémoire…

Après avoir représenté son pays à la Biennale de Venise en 1999 et avoir été exposé au MoMa PS1 à New York en 2005, son travail a fait l’objet de nombreuses expositions personnelles : Moderna Museet de Stockholm, Kunstverein de Hanovre, Centre d’art contemporain de Tel Aviv, Bloomberg Space à Londres et Kunsthaus de Zurich… Il a également participé à de nombreuses expositions collectives : Manifesta3 à Ljubljana (2000), Biennale de Venise (2005), Tate Modern de Londres (2008), Maxxi de Rome, Biennales de Lyon et de La Havane (2011).

Sa formation de peintre transparaît dans ses vidéos et ses photographies, où la lumière et le clair-obscur tiennent une place symbolique, il existe aussi un attrait particulier d’Adrian Paci pour le portrait, dont il fait un usage magistral dans les vidéos Centro di Permanenza Temporanea (2007), et Electric Blue (2010).
La tension entre l’image en mouvement et l’image fixe est au cœur de sa démarche dont le principe fondateur est “le passage permanent du réel au métaphorique”. Conjointement à une sélection d’œuvres anciennes (Albanian Stories, 1997 ; Home to go, 2001 ; Piktori, 2002 ; Vajtojca, 2002…), Adrian Paci présente des œuvres récentes, telles que The Encounter (2011), Inside The Circle (2011), et The Column, une installation vidéo spécifiquement réalisée pour son exposition au Jeu de Paume, accompagnée par la colonne en marbre présentée à droite de l’entrée dans le jardin des Tuileries.
The Column est une réflexion sur la vitesse à laquelle l’offre et la demande doivent être satisfaites dans l’économie contemporaine. Prétexte à un voyage poétique entre l’Orient et l’Occident, The Column montre la transformation subie par un morceau de marbre depuis son extraction d’une carrière en Chine, jusqu’aux longues semaines de son transport en mer durant lesquelles des sculpteurs le façonnent en une colonne romaine.