ADRIAN PACI / GIULIANA RACCO – ANOTHER PLACE
2017-02-13Uniting the two artist’s practices are personal histories of resettlement, as well as a mutual concern for ideas surrounding mobility, borders and ambiguous identities. The title Another Place is taken from a film by Racco, whose own research focuses on migration and other forms of individual and collective movement across territories. Throughout this exhibition are reflections on displacement as both a physical and emotional state of being, where history is not fixed and lines can be drawn across geography and memory.
Another Place begins with a series of watercolour drawings by Adrian Paci, which originate from a variety of moving-image sources such as Youtube clips and publically accessible videos. Some works depict unknown groups of bathers and swimmers, as well as stills from films by artist Derek Jarman. The soft-focus, ambivalent qualities of these drawings suggest that these images are not objective records of daily life: in fact, the seemingly uncanny bathers are derived from footage of immigrants arriving onto the Italian coast and waiting for days near the sea before being sent away. Other watercolours originate from clips of recorded training sessions from the Albanian army, where exercising soldiers with opened arms simultaneously call to mind acts of surrender or by contrast joyous celebration. By extracting and pausing what was meant to be a clear image of victory and strength, the drawings become records of more ambiguous and mysterious moments, and thus take on new meanings and identities.
Opposite – The Procession, 2016
Exhibition runs through to April 13th, 2017
Frith Street Gallery
17-18 Golden Square
London
W1F 9JJ
