December (2024)
The work “Tales from the Mountaintop”, presented at the Museum of African Art in Belgrade received the 2nd award
as part of the 60th October Salon in the exhibition “Hope is a Discipline”.
Find out more about the exhibition here
November (2024)
Presentation at VIA
organized by Muda Mathis
Basel, Switzerland
Screening at Cinema Sil Plaz
presented by Fadri Cadonau
Nov 21st
Ilanz, Switzerland
October (2024)
October Salon - Hope is a Discipline
curated by Lina Džuverović, Ana Knežević and Emilia Epštajn
Oct 20th-Dec 1st
Video installations: The Value of Absence and Engagement Rate Formula, ULUS Gallery and
Tales from the Mountaintop (2023) at Museum of African Art
September (2023)
Who Owns the Truth?
Ars Electronica festival, Lentos Museum, Linz, Austria
in coolaboration with CIFO Foundation (CIFO Awards, 2022)
Sept 6th-10th
Video Installation (premiere): Tales from the Mountaintop (2023)
February (2023)
The Impossible Measure
La Capsula art space, Zürich, Switzerland
Film: The Making of Forty Rectangular Pieces for a Floor Construction (2008)
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Out of Office (Critical and creative views on media culture) Curated by Marijn Bril
IMPAKT, Utrech, The Netherlands
November (2022)
Loop Film Festival
Adn Galeria, Barcelona, Spain
Film: The Smiler (2022)
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Reclamando el eco. Una selección de videos acerca de la música y el mas allá.
Comisariado por LOOP Barcelona
Museo de la Música de Barcelona, Spain
Film:
Glories of a Forgotten Future (2016)
October (2022)
8th International Çanakkale Biennial
Çanakkale, Turkey
Film:
Surplus Production Line (2014)
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Around Video - Fair
Hotel Moxy Lille City
Sept 30th - October 3rd, 2022
Film:
Repulsion System for Productive Lands (2022)
September (2022)
‘No Access’ Video Art Exhibition
Viewmaster Projects Foundation
place: former underground NATO Headquarters
Maastricht, The Neederlands
Film:
The Smiler (2022)
August (2022)
Artist Talk - The Paradox of Labour
organized by Tangent Collective
Toronto, Canada
date: August 27th, 2022
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Online Seminar ‘The Paradox of Art and Labour’
Organized by Berlin Art Institute (BAI)
July/August
more info
July (2022)
Reclamando el eco. Una selección de videos acerca de la música y el mas allá.
Comisariado por LOOP Barcelona
CCMX - Mexico
Film:
Glories of a Forgotten Future (2016)
more info
June (2022)
Ghosts of the Machine
Polygon Gallery
Vancouver, Canada
Film:
Engagement Rate Formula (2019)
more info
December (2021)
One song is very much like another, and the boat is always from afar
Group Show, Guangdong Times Museum, Guangzhou, China
December 4th, 2021
November (2021)
Artist Talk
La Cápsula art space, Zürich, Switzerland
November 25th, 2021
more info
March (2021)
Glasgow Film Festival
No New Normal: Absurdity of Labour, Monitored & Alt Worlds
March 13th, 2021
Films:
Engagement Rate Formula (2019)
Surplus Production Line (2014)
more info
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THE PARADOX OF LABOUR
A reader on the work of Adrian Melis
(Publication)
248 pages
supported by Pori Art Museum (Pori, Finland), Adn Galeria (Barcelona) and Publics (Helsinski)
more info
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Online Seminar THE PARADOX OF ART AND LABOUR: socio-political practices as forms of artistic expressionfrom March 2nd until March 24th, 2021
more info
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November (2020)
ANESTESIA
bi personal by Adrian Melis and Javier Castro
Curated by Laura Baigorri
Loop Film Festival, 2020
Casa Elizarde
Barcelona, Spain
more info__
Homeland “Borderlines”
Loop Film Festival, 2020
Damer House Gallery, Safia Art Contemporari, LOOP, and CAGE Gallery
HOMELAND ‘BORDERLINE’ deals with the idea of boundary and border—a border, a dividing line, or indeed the borderline between friendship and love. Borders are marginal, problematic, and uncertain in the new times of Covid19. The exhibition is composed of two programs: a selection of videos created by Irish artists and a program composed of videos that participated in the LOOP festival 2019 edition.
Date: 12 November 2020, 7:00pm
Address: C/ Cortines 23, Bajos, 08003, Barcelona.
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September (2020)
Terra asciutta (Dry Land)
Curated by Chiara Pirozzi and Alessandra Troncone
In collaboration with Associazione VerginiSanità
Opening: Saturday the 26th of September, 11.30 am
From September 27 till November 15, 2020
The third exhibition of Underneath the Arches consists of a site specific intervention by Adrian Melis (Havana, 1985), titled Terra asciutta (Dry Land).
Adrian Melis’ artistic research is based on the analysis of specific socio-economic contexts, starting from Cuba, his homeland, and moving to the European countries where he has worked in recent years. Using themes and dynamics related to work, Melis creates mechanisms that exploit initial scarcities as a possible productive force, in some cases creating real production lines that involve third parties in achieving his objectives.
With his project titled Terra asciutta, created specifically for Underneath the Arches, the artist analyses and reveals the gap between the “active” and necessary function that the Roman Aqueduct had in the past, and the “passive” and conservative role that the same structure has nowadays. Through a strongly symbolic action, Adrian Melis triggers a new process, capable of restoring vitality and functionality to the place, thus transforming the archaeological heritage into a productive rather than just contemplative site. The artist reactivates the original flow of water by recruiting a workforce in the Vergini-Sanità area and through the experimental use of Foley art techniques. The poetic enterprise, which is even vain in its fleetingness, involves the audience in an immersive experience, both on the occasion of the opening, when a performative action will be underway, and during the exhibition, through an environmental installation conceived site-specifically by the artist.
This project is realized with the contribution of Regione Campania, under the Matronage of Fondazione Donnaregina per le arti contemporanee of Naples, and under the patronage of the Academy of Fine Arts in Naples. It is kindly supported by Fondazione Morra and MANN – Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli.
article about the performance (italian version): https://www.juorno.it/i-suoni-produttivi-del-ventre-di-napoli-in-terra-asciutta-lopera-di-adriano-melis-alla-sanita/?fbclid=IwAR3D-zc8Jppb2fjj8GkmJY5YDW4XN3Ri-AGqhExxfdENkS5kqeLnvCpI6x4
March (2020)
2768. 23,53. 8. 1958. 57%. 1000
Solo Show at Pori Art Museum
Pori, Finland
Vernissage: March 21st
20.03.2020 - 30.08.2020
more info
“[Creative destruction] is a process of industrial mutation that incessantly revolutionises the economic structure from within, incessantly destroying the old one, incessantly creating a new one
— Joseph Schumpeter, Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy (1942)
For artist Adrian Melis and many others living in Cuba in the early 1990s reality was defined by the long shadow cast by Fidel Castro’s glorious revolution and the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Shaped by this paradoxical state of existence, Adrian Melis’s practice can be described as a series of inconspicuous interventions, often poetic and surreal, which address systemic political and corporate corruption, political apathy, labour markets, bureaucratic inefficiency, and their effects on the social fabric. He has developed an extensive body of work articulated through videos, photography and installations. Adrian Melis’s upcoming solo exhibition at Pori Art Museum, titled 2768. 23,53. 8. 1958. 57%. 1000, consists of a selection of older and recent works. Adrian Melis’s work and methodology are markedly influenced by Fidel Castro’s schemes for economic growth. Intricate and often absurd, these experiments — orchestrated by a figure that could only be described as a mad scientist — failed disastrously, each time further dismantling the country’s vulnerable economy. Each work in the exhibition can be perceived as fluctuating between states of production and destruction, and as a whole, 2768. 23,53. 8. 1958. 57%. 1000 reveals potential in the creative destruction of grand ideas.
January/February (2020)
Screening of the film
Engagement Rate Formula (2019)
International Film Festival of Rotterdam (IFFR)
Rotterdam, The Netherlands
Screening of the Films Ovation (2012/19)
and The making of forty rectangular pieces
for a floor construction (2008)
Carleton College, Minessota, USA