Adrian Paci was born in Shkodër, Albania, in 1969. He studied at the Art Academy of Tirana from 1987 to 1991. 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. Adrian Paci’s multifaceted artistic practice includes the fields of video, photography, painting, drawing, sculpture and installation. His position as an exile holds a central place in his oeuvre. His works frequently address themes of dislocation, separation and memory and are formed by an emotional sympathy for the individual. The artist transforms existential moments of human life into stunning and timeless images.  

After representing Albania at the Venice Biennale in 1999 and exhibiting at the MoMa PS1 in New York in 2005, his work has been exhibited internationally and has been featured in numerous solo exhibitions such as at Haifa Museum of Art, Israel (2022); Kunsthalle Krems, Austria (2019); National Gallery of Art, Tirana (2019); Salzburger Kunstverein, Salzburg (2019); Museo Novecento, Florence (2018); MAXXI, Rome (2015); Musée d’Art Contemporain, Montréal (2014); Galeries Nationales du Jeu de Paume, Paris, (2013); Kunsthaus Zurich (2010), Kunstverein, Hannover (2008) and CCA, Tel Aviv (2008) et al. Museum and institutional collections include: Solomon Guggenheim Foundation, New York; MoMA, New York; the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Museum of Contemporary Art, Miami; Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris; Fundaciò La Caixa, Barcelona; Moderna Museet, Stockholm; and Kunsthaus Zurich, Zurich, among others.