Artists: Murat Akagündüz, Alpin Arda Bağcık, Ramazan Can, Fırat Engin, Güneş Terkol, Burcu Yağcıoğlu
Curator: Hasan Bülent Kahraman
There is a misconception brought about by the hard modernization that has been experienced in Turkey: that the new, the modern and finally the contemporary is severed from the past. Yet that is not the case. It is through another understanding that the modern structure of memory and reminiscence keeps the past alive. The modern is a matter of forming an articulated connection. Still, there may be the occasional rupture, or radical negation.
We are not in search of the vanguard. That’s a fact. But precedents are important. Furthermore, the importance of antecedents increases as one becomes more powerful. Antecedents have no significance, provide no benefit, or amount to any meaningful contribution for the meek, weak and irresolute.
Modern art was the history of precursors. Contemporary art might begin its history with itself. Still, ‘the fear of being influenced’ lurks outside the door. And genealogy is yet another fact. The inner adventure of contemporary art produced in Turkey dwells sometimes on patricide and sometimes on matricide. But killing is not enough when it comes to eradicating something. Alongside ‘Habeas Corpus’, what about the corpse of the one killed? Because we have memory and reminiscence. ‘The repressed returns’!
The problem is what we will be remembering. We might be considering the canonical and the classical not to be dominant. The implicit, the discrete, the obscure, the peripheral, the underground, and the minor are a lot more powerful. The history of the underlings is written too, and so it should be.
6 artists born and producing their works after 1970, establish their positions and then look at their predecessors. Looking is constructing a cultural context/connection. Context has an attribute of being historical as well as ahistorical.
The exhibition draws a connection between the 6 artists and the 6 predecessors determined individually by each one of them. Or perhaps a connection among all...
The whole is different than its parts.
Working Hours
Tuesday - Friday 12.00 – 17.00