ARTER MUSEUM EXHIBITIONS: NURİ KUZUCAN - PASSAGE, SARKIS – ENDLESS & IN ITS OWN SHADOW

ARTER MUSEUM İSTANBUL EXHIBITIONS: NURİ KUZUCAN - PASSAGE, 

SARKIS – ENDLESS & IN ITS OWN SHADOW

NURİ KUZUCAN: PASSAGE AT ARTER

NURİ KUZUCAN: PASSAGE AT ARTER

01.06.2023–31.12.2023

Curator: Nilüfer Şaşmazer

Arter, Gallery 1

Nuri Kuzucan’s solo exhibition Passage brings together a selection of the artist’s earlier works and new productions within a site-specific architectural setting. The exhibition centres on both cognitive and perceptual fluidity and transitivity by featuring works that revolve around dualities such as chaos/order, light/shadow, emptiness/fullness, surface/depth, and interior/exterior. Passage creates associations between the transitional space the exhibition resides in and the pictorial space through the architectural, literary, and metaphorical connotations of the word ‘passage’. The exhibition curated by Nilüfer Şaşmazer will be on view at Arter’s 1st-floor gallery between 1 June 2023 and 31 December 2023.

Passage invites visitors to explore the paintings and the space from multiple standpoints by referring to their past experiences and activating their imaginations; rather than works that guarantee a fixed and singular experience, it offers a myriad of images that keep reinventing themselves while aiming for each work to interact with the space and highlight one another, instead of merely being viewed from the static locations where they are hung. Thus, the exhibition reimagines the whole space as a pictorial composition and facilitates a distinctive experience of a ‘painting-space’ or ‘spatial painting’ in which visitors can navigate. The intricately woven spatial setup whose architectural design was undertaken by Duygu Doğan and the lighting delicately tuned to suit it also contribute to this experience by heralding new ways of looking and seeing.

In his artistic practice spanning more than twenty years, space has always been a focal point for Kuzucan whose initial works featured multi-coloured interiors, evolving to depictions of streets and urban landscapes, to bird’s-eye renderings of the city, and finally, monochrome architectural structures that fragment into abstraction. The artist’s most recent paintings integrate fundamental architectural elements with primal geometrical forms and offer a wealth of abstract associations as studies of space and open works.

THREE WHITES, ONE RED, 2023

Acrylic on Canvas

Dimensions: 4 pieces; 55 x 50 cm each [p. 97]

REDS ON WHITE OR WHITES ON RED, 2023

Acrylic on Canvas

Dimensions: 4 Pieces; 1 Piece: 210 x 195 cm,

3 Pieces: 84 x 66 cm each [pp. 47, 48, 115]

28 UNITS (WOOD, FABRIC, PIGMENT, LIGHT AND SHADOW), 2023

Acrylic on Canvas

Dimensions: 28 Pieces; 69 x 56 x 12 cm each (framed)

[pp. 9, 50, 53 (detail), 79, 96, 115]

IMPRESSION I, 2020

Acrylic on Canvas

Dimensions: 210 x 195 cm

Alp Şenbay Collection [pp. 5, 87, 93]

MAQUETTES FOR PASSAGE I–IV, 2023

Marker on Glass, Wood

Dimensions: 4 Pieces; 55 x 50 x 9 cm each (framed)

[pp. 4, 49, 82, 92, 94-95]

RELIEF I, II, 2023

Acrylic on Canvas

Dimensions: 4 pieces; 40 x 40 x 6 cm, 40 x 40 x 4 cm,

40 x 40 x 8 cm, 40 x 40 x 2 cm

RELIEF III, 2023

Acrylic on Canvas

Dimensions: 3 Pieces; 40 x 40 x 6 cm, 40 x 40 x 2 cm,

40 x 40 x 4 cm [pp. 88, 91 (detail), 93]

IMPRESSION II, 2023

Acrylic on Canvas

Dimensions: 220 x 195 cm [pp. 4-5, 83, 85]

CALLIGRAPHY, 2023

Collage With Paper

Dimensions: 12 Pieces; 55 x 55 cm each (framed) [pp. 51, 55, 114]

FAÇADES FOR PASSAGE I–VI, 2023

Acrylic on Paper

Dimensions: 6 Pieces; 60 x 30.5 cm each [pp. 30, 78, 80-81, 88, 93]

NO. 2, 3, 2021

Acrylic on Canvas

Dimensions: 55 x 50 cm each

Selin Süter Collection [pp. 8, 30, 74, 79, 88]

WHEN THE SURFACE BECOMES SPACE BY TARKAN OKÇUOĞLU

In his book titled Perspective as Symbolic Form, Erwin Panofsky expounds the meaning of the Latin word perspectiva by referring to its definition as advanced by Albrecht Dürer’s definition of perspective is concise ‘’seeing through’’. One of the fundamental aims of the book consists in the study of the various definitions of perspective as propounded by artists and art theorists, from the Helenistic ages to the early modern period. Panofsky studies how an understanding of space predicated on perspective took shape through a series of examples which create the illusion that, while looking at the surface of a painting, we are almost contemplating the space that extends behind a window. In his book, Principles of Art History3, renowned art historian Heinrich Wölfflin, on the other hand, expounded the language of form and what it means to see through such concept couples as linear and shady, and plan and depth. Both authors produced seminal works, investigating the history and techniques of the production of illusion on the surface of paintings, as well as their symbolic values and iconographic interpretations. Over the course of the past decades, through the alternately empty and crowded zones which he generates with colour stains on the surface of his paintings, the variegated ways with which he uses light reflections and linear perspective, and the contrasts and depths which he creates through his choice of colours, Nuri Kuzucan has tackled some of the most fundamental issues raised by the abovementioned authors’ writings. As a matter of principle, he keeps clear of curved lines; the fundamental elements of his practice consist in straight lines, geometrical colour stains and shapes, and patches of brightness, obscurity and shadow. A chronological glance at his oeuvre allows one to witness the evolutions undergone by his practice, wherein perspective and visual illusions pervade.

The straight lines which sometimes constitute the entirety of his works, and empty areas encompassed between them, are both interconnected, and form independent spatial areas. What I mean by independent areas has todo with how these areas, which my gaze is caught by when looking at the painting as a whole, create a modulation, stemming from cubic or rectangular prisms. Such a bearing bestows upon the viewer the king of delight that an explorer would experience. Essentially, the ‘’geometric schemes’’ merely consisting of lines and colours, spark our imagination, leading us to see what we would like to see on the painting’s surface, make sense of the shapes according the the forms stored in our memories, and experience a feeling of reminiscence. I could also account for the above as follows: the surfaces of Kuzucan’s paintings present us with a spatial plane consisting of both numerous and distinct singular units. Occasionally, the artist pulls off an element from within his paintings, which at times give me the impression that he generates a whole through the accretion of singular spaces, and recreates it in such a way that summons up one of its modules.  The square or cubic modules which he outlines in some of his paintings by means of colour and linear perspectives, slowly fade out within darkness and disappear from sight. On other accasions, the modules that strecht across the canvas are reinterpreted as a single small – scale work. When reframed and regrouped, these fragments, pulled within a massive structure, recreated and left alone, are transformed into a gigantic canvas in a sense.

As though a live exposure meter, Kuzucan uses the possibilities of light to the fullest. We witness as he often roams across the various parts of the city, constantly in motion, follows light and shadow wherever he goes, registers them in his mind on a daily basis, and how this very roaming and transitivity constitutes a primary element of his creative process. I have witnessed countless times how, while walking across the city in his company or during our coffee break conversations, his eyes  would be caught by the shadows , shifting over time on the surrounding buildings’ facades, and excessively bright light reflections coming from the windows, how his unique gaze would allow him to identify these patterns over and over and how he would immediately capture a record of them on his phone. The visual change undergone by urban space, and the objects that pertain to it, over time, and the spectacle, the contemplation of this change – which have become on almost unconscious reflex of his – have grown to become Kuzucan’s daily practice. He sometimes even determines in advance how the light that emanates from the street will translate into his works, and places the light in interaction with them the exhibition space, causing the works to evolve as the light changes in a sense, and allowing for a whole range of visual experiences. As a matter of fact, light transitions are so operative in the artist’s works that he will even calculate how the shadow of the light that strikes the thick frames he sometimes uses will fall onto another frame, leading the work to stir so to say, and assume different shapes and new levels of meaning.

It seems reasonable to look for the cradle and source of inspiration of Nuri Kuzucan’s masterful variations on light and perspective somewhere by Adnan Çoker’s workshop, which he attended when studying at the Fine Arts Academy. One would be inclined to consider that the years which he spent there allowed for the artist to internalize his experiences on geometry, light and shadow, and the initial formation of his thought and gaze education, later to evolve over the years into its current state. Kuzucan’s painting -  if not from the point of view of style at least thought-wise- present a strong kinship with the uncanny compositions created by Çoker through the use of forms which fade and disappear into darkness under the effect of mysterious light sources projected on a various shapes, and colour transitions. The spatial and dimensional system created by Kuzucan in his paintings occasionally articulates relatively explicit references. For instance, we may distinguish, here, the outline of a city, fading away behind the shadows and darkness of night. There, the city, almost entirely swaddled in tones of black, may give us a wink, in the shape of a pink spot, befuddling the viewer. On the other hand, when looking from a certain distance at these lines, shadows and colours evocative of cityscapes, we may experience the illusion that the painting repeatedly collapses and re-form over and over. The image of the city becomes blurred. This very haziness is a wiggy feint, a trick played upon us by the artist. Far from requiring a steady posture, the work demands that we rove within labyrinth of the compositions; the viewer will soon notice that every image which they might have believed to be stable actually lead them to another tunnel. Depths without a single focal point, and consisting in a variety of points of view, extend in all directions, sometimes fading away, yet reappearing inexpectedly in some corner of the canvas.

The anachronism aside, the perspective fields which Kuzucan projects onto the surface of his paintings out of various vanishing points at once remind me of the dynasty history books embroidered with miniatures, produced in ottoman courts in the 16^th century. Indeed, the miniature masters who produced these works implemented the ‘’multiple viewpoints’’ technique, whish they derived from Iranian paintings, instead of a perspective technique transcribing a single viewpoint; as a result, the same picture represents the constructions scattered across the urban space simultaneously fro above and up front. Within the playful mind frame espoused by miniature art, which disregards naturalism, perspective as a tool is subject to arbitrary uses; as such, it heralds hierarchic conceptions that generally appear in Middle Ages painting. For instance, by choosing to represent, amid the constructions that encircle the palace’s wide courtyard, only the ruler’s throne in linear perspective, the miniature master pushes the hierarchy that prevailed at the sultan’s  court onto the surface of the picture. Unlike the Renaissance master, the miniature master didn’t aspire after identically reproducing the world by means of such tools as perspective, and light-shadow; rather, he would use perspective in the amount and fashion that suited their intentions, and aim to represent the world anew, as they comprehended and fancied it. For instance, in the same depiction of Istanbul, a fictitious perspective is applied, implying several vanishing points of different nature at once, resulting in the representation of the Galata area from up front, while the historic peninsula is depicted from above. As it instates several points of view  at once onto the surface of the picture, this fictional world also entails a perceptions of the floe of time. As a result, the viewer goes through the imaginary feeling of seeing the city from various temporal and spatial viewpoints, and as a whole, all at once. One might be tempted to say that the West’s illusion appears as the East’s imagination. The contemplation of the picture, as is the case with Kuzucan ‘s paintings, sparks the imagination; as the viewer meanders across the depths of the picture, and also experiences the temporality that is concealed within. The eastern conception of painting bears other resemblances with Kuzucan’s creation. Despite a certain wariness as to the connection between painting and mathematics with regards to perspective, one of the distinctive approaches to surface decoration in the East regiments geometry into an aesthetic standard, through mathematical model. When applied on the surface of the picture, the geometric patterns consisting of interwined tetragons, hexegons and octagons summon of infinity. As the day advances the light that strikes the chiseled wooden panels and surrounding gridded walls scale up, and add further depth to these images. Used to create illusion in the Western, perspective, in Eastern painting, gives birth to geometric schemes that conjure up a range of associations in the mind of the viewer as the latter watches. Every new glance cast at these intertwined polygons prompts the viewer to discover a new pattern, and to mentally visualise stars and wheels of destiny, symbolizing cosmic laws. In eastern art, more than a mere teaching instrumental in the picture’s conception, geometry forms the image itself. On the other hand, this pattern also awaits for the viewer to decipher it. The metallic grid that shields the windows of an idle fountain, which we may unnoticingly glance at every now and then in the oblivious flow od daily life, the tarnished tiled frontispiece of a tomb from the Middle Ages, or the chiseled adgestones surrounding the monumental gate of a derelict madrassa, all leave their mark in our memories, without our notice. Thereupon, Kuzucan’s works conjure up the visual patterns concealed within the depths of our memories, and crack open the door to the seal consciously or unconsciously fastened with the past.

Naturally, I am not claiming that Kuzucan operates in direct interaction with the compositions and geometric decorations of Ottoman miniature, allowing for several viewpoints to coexist in the picture, or that he projects them straightforwardly into his paintings. However, the fact that his works often hint at various periods and geographic areas of art history should not be overlooked.

As we begin to reflect on Kuzucan’s works, in all likelihood, our mind will make numerous stop overs down art history’s timeline; and our imagination will strecht across an extensive space and time range, running from West to East. The occasionally plain, yet regularly thoroughly complex spatial scheme which he produced through his paintings over the course of his artistic career spanning more than twenty years, inevitably intersects with major art history issue. Kuzucan’s effort at measuring up with such an immemorial issue as the creation of depth onto the surface of the painting – running from Antiquity to current times -, and the courage he showed in ceaselessly interrogating the same issue, is yet another mark of the profoundness of his works’ value.

https://www.arter.org.tr/publication-detail/nuri-kuzucan-pasaj/64

Nuri Kuzucan’s solo exhibition book name is Passage. You may read conversations with Nilüfer Şaşmazer and Nuri Kuzucan and other essays from Duygu Demir, Asuman Suner and Hakan Tüzün Şengün to buy a book. If you may want to buy the book Passage  to click above link.

CUBES, 2017

Acrylic on Canvas

Dimensions: 200 x 190 cm

Serdar Bilgili Collection [pp. 75, 77]

BLACK TRIPTYCH (TRIANGLES, WHITES, LINES), 2023

Acrylic on Canvas

Dimensions: 3 Pieces; 55 x 50 cm each [pp. 31, 36, 45 (detail), 47, 92]

DIAGRAMS, 2023

Acrylic on Canvas

Dimensions: 195 x 185 cm [pp. 37, 39, 40, 83]

BLACKS, WHITES AND SOME FORMS, 2023

Acrylic on Canvas

Dimensions: 210 x 195 cm [pp. 5, 42, 83]

 

BLACK CUBES, WHITE GAPS, 2020

Acrylic on Canvas

Dimensions: 210 x 195 cm [pp. 5, 43]

NINE FORMS, 2023

Acrylic on Canvas

Dimensions: 220 x 195 cm [pp. 31, 35]

NURİ KUZUCAN

Nuri Kuzucan(b. 1971, Zara) completed his BA in Painting and MA in Social Sciences at the Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University in Istanbul. The artist has participated in various solo exhibitions in Istanbul, Basel, Berlin and Dubai since 1993 and has held solo exhibitions in Istanbul, Hong Kong and Shanghai since 2004. Kuzucan’s works are included in institutional collections, including the collections of Pera Museum, Istanbul Modern and Arter. Following the book published in the context of ISTHK | HKIST              ( Edouard Malingue Gallery, 2013 ), the artist’s first solo exhibition in Hong Kong, an extensive publication accompanying Kuzucan’s solo exhibition Passage, curated by Nilüfer Şaşmazer at Arter in 2023, is also being prepared with textual contributions by Duygu Demir, Tarkan Okçuoğlu, Asuman Suner and Hakan Tüzün Şengün. The artist lives and works in Istanbul.

 

 

CURATOR NİLÜFER ŞAŞMAZER

Nilüfer Şaşmazer (b. 1986) works as an independent curator and editor. She curated the exhibitions Petrified Dreams ( Galeri Nev Istanbul, 2022 ) and Fugue ( Evliyagil Museum, Ankara, 2019 ); and co-curated the exhibitions Dark Deep Darkness and Splendor

( Galerist, 2017 ) and La Ventura ( Ark Kültür, 2016 ). She also co-curated Füreya (2017), the most comprehensive retrospective of Füreya Koral, one of Turkey’s first contemporary ceramic artists, while also co-authoring and co-editing her monograph.Şaşmazer also co-edited FüsunOnur: Once Upon a Time…, the monograph of Füsun Onur who represented the Pavilion of Turkey at the 59th Venice Biennale (2022). Among her recent editorial works are the publications that accompanied the group exhibition You Know Who ( Abdülmecid Efendi Mansion, 2022 ), The Seventh Continent (16th International Istanbul Biennial, curated by Nicolas Bourriaud in 2019).

ARTER MUSEUM İSTANBUL

ABOUT ARTER MUSEUM

At its new building, Arter continues to be a sustainable, vibrant cultural hub, making its broad range of programmes accessible to everyone.

Having presented 35 exhibitions from 2010 to 2018 at its building on Istiklal Street, Arter moved to its new building in Istanbul’s Dolapdere district in September 2019. At its new building designed by Grimshaw Architects, Arter continues expanding the range of its activities beyond exhibitions to performances and events across many disciplines.

Arter’s building has 18,000 square metres of indoor area and features exhibition galleries, performance halls, learning areas, a library, an arts bookstore, and a bistro.

Arter brings together artists and audiences through celebration of today’s art in all its forms and disciplines.

COLLECTION & EXHIBITION

Instigated in 2007 and conceived on an international basis, the Arter Collection values and welcomes novel ideas, discourses, and tendencies in contemporary art, embracing all formats that might be considered unconventional.

The Arter Collection comprises more than 1,400 works by around 400 artists as of 2022 and brings together various contemporary expressions, positions and practices from all around the world. The collection includes works from the 1960s to the present, covering a broad variety of media ranging from painting, drawing, sculpture, print, photography, film, video, installation to sound, light and performance-based practices.

Incorporating a plurality of themes, concepts and gestures, the Arter Collection offers an inspiring source for the practice of exhibition making and contributes to the programme. Alongside the exhibitions drawn exclusively or primarily from the collection, Arter also presents curated non-collection solo and group exhibitions in order to re-contextualise and give visibility to works both from within and outside the collection.

EVENTS

Arter’s multi-disciplinary Events Programme features outstanding and innovative examples of performing arts, classical, contemporary and electronic music, film, performance and digital arts.

Placed in dialogue with the collection and exhibitions where possible, the events are not limited to Arter’s two performance halls, the Sevgi Gönül Auditorium and Karbon, but are also held in different parts/spaces of the building. Collaborating with local and international artists, curators and various institutions, Arter commissions and co-produces new works.

https://www.arter.org.tr/about-us

ARTER MUSEUM DİVAN BISTRO

ARTER MUSEUM BOOKSTORE

ARTER MUSEUM & CHILDREN

ARTER MUSEUM LIBRARY

ARTER MUSEUM İSTANBUL

SARKİS: ENDLESS

SARKİS: ENDLESS

04.05.2023–04.02.2024

Curator: Emre Baykal

Arter, Gallery 2

The exhibition titled ENDLESS brings together Sarkis’ selected works from the Arter Collection in the same gallery space for the very first time, endowing them with a new life and new experiences. Covering a wide period of time in the artist’s production, ENDLESS features works from the 1980s to the 2010s, including Respiro – an installation first exhibited in the Pavilion of Turkey at the Venice Biennale in 2015. In addition to concepts and themes frequently encountered in Sarkis’ works, such as warming, burning, camouflage, memory, traces, atelier and home, ENDLESS emphasises the crucial role played by light, colour and music in his artistic practice.

Conceived to coexist with a space, to embrace spatial references and associations, or to forge a different space altogether, the works of Sarkis are reinterpreted and transformed by the artist on every occasion they are exhibited. The exhibition titled ENDLESS, presented on Arter’s 2nd floor, brings together a selection of the artist’s works from the Arter Collection in the same gallery space for the very first time, endowing them with a new life and new experiences.

ENDLESS spans a wide period of time in Sarkis’ production, from the 1980s through to Respiro – an installation exhibited in the Pavilion of Turkey at the Venice Biennale in 2015. In addition to concepts and themes frequently encountered in Sarkis’ works, such as warming, burning, camouflage, memory, traces, atelier and home, ENDLESS emphasises the crucial role played by light, colour and music in his artistic practice. In the exhibition, Sarkis restages works charged with memories of different pasts and places – such as Icons of Istanbul (1986–2023), Elle Danse (1990), Transflammation (1996–2001), Mixed Retrospective (2001), Calling (To the Bees) I (2013), as well as the mirrors and neon lights from Respiro which were donated to the Arter Collection in 2021 – and reinterprets each of them within a larger body they construct together in their current setting. ENDLESS mainly consists of existing works drawn from the Arter Collection, but also features two new pieces welcoming visitors as they enter the space. Sarkis requested staff members working on the exhibition setup to leave black fingerprints on the wall, calling to mind an era burdened by political upheavals, natural disasters and loss. Just beside this dark circle, a wheelchair adorned with white feathers looks ready to move at any moment and leads us to the lights and colours of Respiro, paving a way for hope.

Sarkis also sustains his dialogue with other artists, both his predecessors and contemporaries, through the works presented in this exhibition. Johann Sebastian Bach’s Cantata No. 127 and Dmitri Shostakovich’s Quartet No. 15 resonating from the works installed at opposite ends of the space, converge with the music composed for Respiro by Jacopo Baboni-Schilingi, transforming ENDLESS into a staging for three independent textures of sound orchestrated by the artist. The works of Ali Kazma and Domenika Kaesdorf, included in ENDLESS at Sarkis’ invitation, further enrich and broaden the world Sarkis builds in the exhibition.

ENDLESS brings together Sarkis’ works produced in different mediums and times in order to stimulate new relationships among them and expand their distinctive memories on a new journey he sets up in the exhibition space.

As part of Arter Publications’ Close-Up series, Emre Baykal, the curator of ENDLESS, wrote a comprehensive book titled Çaylak Sokak, which was released in September 2019. The publication offers a multi-layered reading of Sarkis' works, including some featured in ENDLESS, by placing them in various contexts related to political and cultural history. The book focuses on Sarkis’ iconic installation Çaylak Sokak, which is regarded as one of landmarks in the history of Turkish contemporary art.

SARKIS ENDLESS

Curator: Emre Baykal

Exhibition view Arter, 2023

Photo: Hadiye Cangökçe

SARKIS TRANSFLAMMATION , 1996–2001

Film (colour, sound), watercolour, wooden blocks Watercolours:

17 pieces, 34.5 x 41.5 cm

Each Film: 16’05”

Wooden Blocks: Dimensions variable

Watercolours and film: Arter Collection Installation with wooden blocks and film:

Courtesy of the artist and Galerie Nathalie Obadia

Photo: Hadiye Cangökçe

WHEELCHAIRE WITH BIRD FEATHERS  , 2023

Dimensions:  86 x 63 x 103 cm

Courtesy of the artist

 

SOOT BLACK FINGERPRINTS, 2023

Lamp black watercolour fingerprints

Dimensions:  300 cm ø

Courtesy of the artist

Photo: Hadiye Cangökçe

MIXED RETROSPECTIVE, 2001

Photographs, table, fluorescent, newspaper bales, flower in a vase Table:

Dimensions:  119 x 240 x 76.5 cm

Arter Collection

Photo: Hadiye Cangökçe

SARKIS

The works of Sarkis (b. 1938, Istanbul), who moved to Paris in 1964 following his graduation from the Department of Painting at the Istanbul State Academy of Fine Arts (IDGSA) and maintained his ties with Turkey ever since, deal with the concepts of memory and time as well as alluding to art history, daily life, and his own life story. In the 1960s, the artist’s production mostly consisted of paintings made with gouache and watercolour. In the 1970s, Sarkis began producing sculptural works, using various elements such as tar, metal, electrical current, resistance wiring, heat, water and neon. Presenting a cultural and historical accumulation for the audience to explore through objects, sounds, images and scenes, the artist re-examines the relationship of his works to one another and to the space in which they are located on every occasion they are exhibited.

Sarkis’ works have been presented in established institutions including the Centre Georges Pompidou (Paris), Guggenheim Museum (New York), Muséed’ArtModerne de la Ville de Paris, Kunst-und- Austellungshalleder Bundesrepublik Deutschland(Bonn) and Museé du Louvre (Paris), as well as the biennials of Venice Sydney, Shanghai, São Paulo, Moscow, and Istanbul. Following the exhibition Sarkis: Interpretation of Cage / Ryoanji, curated by MelihFereli at Arter in 2013, Sarkis’ seminal installation Çaylak Sokak was also presented in Arter’s group exhibition What Time Is It?, curated by Emre Baykal and Eda Berkmen in 2019.

CURATOR EMRE BAYKAL

Emre Baykal (1965, Istanbul)received his undergraduate degree from the department of English Language and Literature at Boğaziçi University. He worked as Associate Director (1995–2000) and Director (2000–2005) of the Istanbul Biennial and as Exhibitions Director at Santral İstanbul (2005–2008). In 2008, he joined Arter’s team as Exhibitions Director and

Curator. Appointed as the curator of the Turkish Pavilion at the 55th Venice Biennale in 2013, he has been serving as Chief Curator of Arter since 2016. Baykal curated the exhibitions This Play (2022–2023), Füsun Onur: Opus II – Fantasia (2021–2022),

Precaution (2021–2022), Ayşe Erkmen (Whitish, 2019–2020), What Time Is It? (with Eda Berkmen; 2019–2020), Ali Kazma (timemaker, 2015), Füsun Onur (Through the Looking Glass, 2014), Volkan Aslan (Don’t Forget to Remember, 2013), Envy, Enmity, Embarrassment (2013), Mona Hatoum (You Are Still Here, 2012), Deniz Gül (5 Person Bufet, 2011), Second Exhibition (2010–2011), Tactics of Invisibility (with Daniela Zyman; 2010–2011) as part of Arter’s exhibition programme and contributed to various publications.

IN ITS OWN SHADOW AT ARTER

IN ITS OWN SHADOW

19.10.2023–07.04.2024

Curator: Emre Baykal, Gizem Uslu Tümer Arter,

Gallery 0 & -1

Arter presents a new exhibition titled In Its Own Shadow drawn from its collection. The group exhibition curated by Emre Baykal and Gizem Uslu Tümer will be on view as of 19 October 2023 at Arter’s entrance and -1 floor galleries.

Drawn from the Arter Collection, the group exhibition In Its Own Shadow is conceived around thematic dualities such as inside and outside, public and private, presence and absence, memory and oblivion, void and body; and seeks out the grey areas that arise from the interplay between these notions. The exhibition, which comprises works by 25 artists, consists of two complementary sections that spread across Arter’s entrance and -1 floor galleries.

Embodying qualities implied by the exhibition’s title such as invisibility, uncertainty, concealment, and ambiguity, the works that form In Its Own Shadow act as an invitation for the viewers to pursue the traces that take shape in their minds, to search for what remains in shadows, and to engage in an exhibition experience that will be enriched by their own mental and emotional participation.

Often starting off with ordinary, everyday materials, objects, or situations, yet transforming them with unconventional and unexpected interventions, these works favour shadow over light, the unknown over the obvious, and the fragment over the whole. Through methods such as veiling, reduction, repetition and displacement or through the interactions and affinities they establish within the space, the works in the exhibition lead us into a misty field of perception for the pursuit of new meanings.

Artists: Hüseyin Bahri Alptekin, Mirosław Bałka, Pedro Barateiro, Michał Budny, Hera Büyüktaşçıyan, Jae-Eun Choi, Cevdet Erek, Terry Fox, Hreinn Friðfinnsson, Bilge Friedlaender, Deniz Gül, Mona Hatoum, Rolf Julius, Nadia Kaabi-Linke, Šejla Kamerić, Borga Kantürk, Mohammed Kazem, Inge Mahn, Ferhat Özgür, Seza Paker, Pinaree Sanpitak, Chiharu Shiota, Yaşam Şaşmazer, Hema Upadhyay, Nika Zupančič

NADIA KAABI- LINKE

BUTCHER BLISS, 2010

Porcelain, Chrome Plated Metal Hooks, Metallic Bar Metallic

Bar: 220 cm, Porcelain Pieces: 35 × 32 cm, 70 × 46 cm,

37 × 30 cm, 43 × 33 cm Ed. 3/3

Photo: Sena Nur Taştekne

PEDRO BARATEIRO

FINALLY..., 2011

506 Golden Coated Oak Graphite Pencils

Dimensions Variable

Photo: Sena Nur Taştekne

MONA HATOUM

KAPAN, 2012

Mild Steel, Glass

5 Pieces; 156 × 300 × 300 cm, 114 × 45.5 × 55.5 cm, 135 × 46 × 55 cm,

127 × 46 × 55 cm, 154 × 57 × 65 cm, 143 × 56 × 65 cm

Photo: Flufoto (Barış Aras &  Elif Çakırlar

CHIHARU SHIOTA

STATE OF BEING (CHAIR), 2012

Chair, Metal, Black Threads

150 × 70 × 60 cm

Photo: Sena Nur Taştekne

BORGA KANTÜRK

IN THE MIDDLE, 2011

Photography

24.5 × 102 cm (framed)

Exhibition View: Arter, 2023.

Photo: Sena Nur Taştekne

HEMA UPADHYAY

BEAUTY AND DECAY , 2013

Long Grain Rice, Ink, Arches Paper, Glue, Wooden Shelf, Magnifying Glass

2 pieces; 186.5 × 117.5 cm each (framed)

Exhibition View: Arter, 2023.

Photo: Sena Nur Taştekne

HEMA UPADHYAY

BEAUTY AND DECAY (DETAIL), 2013

Long Grain Rice, Ink, Arches Paper, Glue, Wooden Shelf, Magnifying Glass

2 pieces; 186.5 × 117.5 cm each (framed)

Exhibition View: Arter, 2023.

Photo: Sena Nur Taştekne

DENİZ GÜL

CUT GLASS, 2011 [2023]

Riva Decor

234 x 538 x 1,5 cm

Exhibition View: Arter, 2023.

Photo: Flufoto (Barış Aras and Elif Çakırlar)

CEVDET EREK

SSS – Shore Scene Soundtrack, 2007

SSS Booklets, 5 Original Drawings From the SSS Booklet,

Marker on Paper,

Synthetic Carpet

Carpet: 101 x 201 cm

Booklets:

SSS – Shore Scene Soundtrack: Theme and Variations for Carpet, BAS, 2008 (Turkish–English)

SSS – Sawt Sura Sahilliya, Kayfa ta, 2014 (Arabic)

SSS – How to Imitate the Sound of the Shore Using Two Hands and a Carpet,

Sternberg Press and ta, 2017 (English–Arabic)

Photo: Sena Nur Taştekne

ROLF JUKIUS

RAIN, 2010

Japanese Paper, Video Projector, Wire, Pedestal,

Video (Colour, Sound)

Paper: 78 × 105 cm, video: 38”

CURATOR EMRE BAYKAL

Emre Baykal (1965, Istanbul)received his undergraduate degree from the department of English Language and Literature at Boğaziçi University. He worked as Associate Director (1995–2000) and Director (2000–2005) of the Istanbul Biennial and as Exhibitions Director at Santral İstanbul (2005–2008). In 2008, he joined Arter’s team as Exhibitions Director and

Curator. Appointed as the curator of the Turkish Pavilion at the 55th Venice Biennale in 2013, he has been serving as Chief Curator of Arter since 2016. Baykal curated the exhibitions This Play (2022–2023), Füsun Onur: Opus II – Fantasia (2021–2022),

Precaution (2021–2022), Ayşe Erkmen (Whitish, 2019–2020), What Time Is It? (with Eda Berkmen; 2019–2020), Ali Kazma (timemaker, 2015), Füsun Onur (Through the Looking Glass, 2014), Volkan Aslan (Don’t Forget to Remember, 2013), Envy, Enmity, Embarrassment (2013), Mona Hatoum (You Are Still Here, 2012), Deniz Gül (5 Person Bufet, 2011), Second Exhibition (2010–2011), Tactics of Invisibility (with Daniela Zyman; 2010–2011) as part of Arter’s exhibition programme and contributed to various publications.

CURATOR GİZEM USLU TÜMER

Gizem Uslu Tümer (1987, Istanbul) completed her undergraduate studies at the Department of Design and Management, offered both by Parsons Paris (France) and Parsons School of Design (USA),  following her graduation from TED Istanbul College. She gained her master’s degree in Contemporary Art from Sotheby’s Institute of Art, New York. From 2009 to 2010, she worked as Artist Liaison at Galerist, 2011 to 2013 as Programmes Coordinator at SAHA Association, and 2013 to 2015 as Associate Director of Rampa Istanbul. She joined Arter’s team in 2015 and continues her duty as Exhibitions Manager.