ONCE UPON A TIME...

PABLO MARTINEZ MUNIZ
POHOTOGRAPHY EXHIBITION AT BM CAC

8 JANUARY-7 FEBRUARY 2009

COUPLED DILEMMAS
BM SUMA CONTEMPORARY ART CENTER is organizing the third exhibition on images of Istanbul with the photography of the Spanish artist Pablo Martinez Muñiz, who has been living here since 2003. Martinez is going to expose his photos entitled as: Kurban; Fragmentpolis; Unfinished Buildings; Silence I: The Caravans Road; Silence II: In the Desert; The Memories of the Infinite Defeat, When the Flag Becomes an Obsession; Iran_Nari; Istanbul, a City of Love and Dreams! and Exiles: In Honour of Yılmaz Güney in a particular installation conceived by him, in 10 rooms of the center.
How does an artist who has lived neither his infancy nor his youth in this country or in this city can express his interpretations? This is a question to be raised as it indicates that the memory in question is not covering a long period of time. It is not easy to re-read and interpret the transformations which are even enormous for the people who have been born and grown in this country or this city and how they fit into a lifetime is hardly understandable.
The destructive results of globalism in this country and city are undeniable when all the scientific investigations and analyses are classifying and revealing the results of this destruction. However, at the same time there is a positive face of globalism that many foreigners from different countries, especially the creative ones, are coming here to live and work. No doubt there are socio-political, economical and cultural reasons behind this venture. For example, especially for the people from European Union, Istanbul is a field of entry into Turkey which is for them the source of the dilemma of “being accepted / not accepted ". At the same time Istanbul is the only acknowledged part of "the not accepted” Turkey... For the creative people however, Istanbul is a field of fertile chaos that supports the bed of imagination with its transformations, contradictions, complicated urban texture and un-urbanized population as well as with its particular pairings of tradition/arabesque and modern/kitsch. After coming in, these guests want to see more in and beyond Istanbul. One of the most attractive adventures of our era is to discover this country or this city that transforms itself continuously. It is the adventure of observing and understanding the particular intimidating disorder of a city or a country, of the side by side existence of limitless affluence and deep poverty and of the unanimity of overpowering masses and frightening desolations.
Pablo Martinez Muñiz has particular motives to wish to live in Istanbul. Just as he says, here he leaves his orientalist prejudices behind and finds a rich material to think and talk about topics such as seclusion, lack of communication, power, existence, and religion and in particular vitality that is not so visible. Nevertheless, the visual production he is presenting to us is positioning him into the above mentioned evaluation. He is also living an adventure; while he is living it, he documents the subjects and when he is documenting, he is revealing himself and he is transforming them. Like the others, his visual material is the archaeology of the architecture and people of the city. Here we have to focus on the question of which photographs are “documentary” and which have the quality of “artwork”.
We have to mention two elements, the constructive one and the attractive one of the photography: The general effect of the image is based on the observation and is informative; the conceptual effect cuts through this general effect, strikes and wounds the viewer. The detail that is concealed on the surface of the photo and in all probability that holds the coincidental moment of shooting can destroy the order of seeing. The viewer is hit. The difference between the documentary photograph and a photograph as an art work is in evidence, when we feel the necessity of making this difference. In Martinez Muñiz’s photographs we can perceive that this general knowledge and the striking detail are shown side by side. In particular the series of double photographs entitled “The memories of the Infinite Defeat” playfully provoke the perceptive skills of the viewer. The informative overview couples with a coincidental moment and positions the photography beyond the documentary.
When I asked to Pablo Martinez Muñiz “What is your intention in placing the photographs side by side?” he replied that he wants to assemble a narration which is emanating from the tension of complementation and contradiction. The coupled photographs Yılmaz Güney and the unfortunate children in the parks; Anatolia's ways and Tunisia's deserts; the desolate suburbs and the graffiti reflect impressive narrations. In Martinez Muñiz 's photos we can read his deluge between two adventures of conquering Istanbul and Turkey: a critical gaze to the political, economical and cultural problems of Turkey, and a gaze that reflects an considerate approach of penetrating into the basic geographical and cultural problems of the people, without exploiting them.
Beral Madra, December, 2008




İKİLEMLİ EŞLEŞMELER
BM Suma Çağdaş Sanat Merkezi, İstanbul üstüne kurgulanan sergilerinin üçüncüsünü 2003’den bu yana İstanbul’da yaşayan İspanyol sanatçı Pablo Martinez Muniz’in fotoğraf işleriyle gerçekleştiriyor. Martinez Kurban; Sürgünler: Yılmaz Güney’in Anısına; Fragmentpolis; Bitmemiş Binalar; Sessizlik: Kervan Yolu ve Çölde; Edebi Yıkımın Hatıraları; Bayrak Saplantıya Dönüştüğünde; İran_Nari; ve Kent Bir Aşktır, Kent Bir Rüyadır... o İstanbul’dur! başlıklı fotoğraflarını merkezin 10 odasında özel olarak tasarladığı bir düzende sergiliyor.
Çocukluğu ve gençliğini bu ülkede ve kentte geçirmemiş bir sanatçı nasıl bir yorum yapar? Bu bir anlamda uzun bir zaman dilimini içeren bir belleğin olmadığını işaret ettiği için sorulması gereken bir soru. Bu ülkede ve kentte doğmuş, büyümüş ve yaşıyor olanlar açısından bakıldığında, bir insanın yaşamının içine bunca değişim nasıl sığar dedirten değişimleri yeniden okumak ve yorumlamak o denli kolay bir iş değil.
Küreselleşmenin bu ülkedeki ve kentteki tahribatını görmezden gelemeyiz; bütün bilim dallarındaki araştırmalar ve saptamalar bu yıkımları istifleyerek, sınıflandırarak önümüze koyuyor. Ancak küreselleşmenin olumlu görüngülerinden birisi de, farklı ülkelerden insanların, özellikle de yaratıcı insanların, gelip burada yaşamak ve burada üretmek istemeleri. Bu isteğin temelinde siyasal, ekonomik, kültürel nedenler var, kuşkusuz. Özellikle AB insanları için İstanbul “istenen/istenmeyen” ikilemini oluşturan Türkiye’ye bir giriş coğrafyası. İstanbul aynı zamanda “istenmeyen” Türkiye’nin “kabul edilebilir” tek parçası… Yaratıcı insanlar için İstanbul, söz konusu değişimleri, karşıtlıkları, dolambaçlı kent dokusu, kentleşmemiş insan dokusu ve kuşkusuz geleneksel/arabesk, modern/kitsch eşleşmesiyle yaratıcılığın düş yatağını oluşturan verimli bir karmaşa alanı. İstanbul’a girdikten sonra da daha ötesini görmek istiyor bu konuklar… Sürekli değişen bir ülkeyi ve kenti keşfe çıkmak, günümüzün en çekici serüvenidir. Başka bir ülkenin, başka bir kentin kendine özgü yıldırıcı düzensizliğini, sınırsız zenginliklerle derin yoksullukların yan yana varoluşunu, bunaltıcı kalabalıklarla ürkütücü ıssızlıkların kardeşliğini izlemek ve anlamak serüvenidir bu.
Pablo Martinez Muniz’in özel nedenleri vardır, İstanbul’da yaşamak istemesi açısından. Nitekim İstanbul’da ve Türkiye’de yaşarken oryantalist önyargılarından sıyrıldığını, yalnızlık, iletişimsizlik, iktidar, varoluş, din ve görünmeyen bir özellik olarak da canlılık gibi konular üstünde düşünmek ve konuşmak için zengin bir malzeme bulduğunu söylüyor. Ancak, bize sunduğu görsel üretim onu ister istemez yukarıda sözü edilen genel değerlendirme içine çekiyor. O da bir serüveni yaşamaktadır; yaşarken belgelemekte, belgelerken kendini anlatmakta, anlatırken dönüştürmektedir. Kentin mimari ve insan dokusunun arkeolojisini yapmak, herkes gibi onun da yapıtlarının görsel malzemesini oluşturuyor. Burada, hangi fotoğrafların “belgesel” hangilerinin “sanat yapıtı” niteliği taşıdığı üstüne odaklanmalıyız.
Fotoğrafın yapısını kuran ve ilgi uyandıran iki öğesinden söz etmemiz gerekir: Gözleme dayanan görüntünün genel etkisi ve bu genel etkiyi delip geçen, izleyiciye çarpan ve onu yaralayan kavramsal etki . Fotoğrafın yüzeyinde gizli olan ve belki de çekildiği anın rastlantısallığını içeren ayrıntı, görme düzenini altüst edebilir: İzleyici isabet almıştır. Fotoğrafın belgesel olması ve sanat yapıtı olması arasındaki ayrım, biz o ayrımı aramak gereğini duyduğumuzda belirginleşir. Martinez Muniz’in fotoğraflarında bu genel bilgi ile vurucu ayrıntının yan yana gösterildiğini izliyoruz. Özellikle “Sonsuz Yenilginin Anıları” başlıklı dizideki ikili resimleri izleyenin algı süreci üstünde bu oyunu oynuyor. Her genel bilgi bir rastlantı anıyla eşleşip, fotoğrafı belge olmaktan öteye geçiriyor.
Martinez Muniz’e “Fotografları yan yana yerleştirerek neyi amaçlıyorsunuz?” sorusunu sorduğumda karşıtlık ve bütünlük arasındaki gerilimden çıkan anlatıyı kurgulamak istediğini, söyledi. Etkileyici anlatılar Yılmaz Güney ve sokaklardaki ve parklardaki yoksul çocuklar; Anadolu yolları ile Tunus çölleri; kentin varoş manzaraları ile duvar yazıları eşleşmelerinde izleniyor. Martinez’in fotoğraflarında, onun Türkiye ve İstanbul’u keşfetme serüveninde iki bakış ve yorum arasında gidip geldiğini okuyabiliriz: Türkiye’nin siyasal-ekonomik-kültürel sorunlarına eleştirel bir bakış ve insanları göstermeden onların temel coğrafi ve kültürel sorunlarına anlayışla nüfuz etmek isteyen bir yaklaşımı içeren bakış...
Beral Madra, Aralık 2008

THE GREAT M.P.

IN ISTANBUL

22 NOVEMBER-30 JANUARY 2008

AT BM SUMA CAC

IN MAURIZIO PELLEGRIN’S INSTALLATIONS AND PHOTOGRAPHY I OBSERVE THE FORMATION OF THE CHANGE OF PARADIGM IN THE LATE 70’S WHEN MNEMISM STARTED TO DISSOLVE THE RIGIDITY OF PURE MODERNISM AND UTOPIC PROGRESS. ARTISTS OF THAT ERA STARTED TO RELATE THEIR CONCEPTS TO THE TOTALITY OF HUMAN CREATIVE PRODUCTION AND THE HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE ENTERED INTO A DIALECTICAL DIALOGUE. AT THE SAME TIME UMBERTO ECCO INDICATED THAT THE WORK CONCEPT HAS UNDERGONE A RADICAL TRANSFORMATION AND BECAME “OPEN WORK”, IN WHICH NOT ONLY TRIVIALITY AND MEDIA, BUT ALSO HISTORY, POLITICS, PHILOSOPY AND AESTHETİCS GET IN TOUCH WITH EACHOTHER.
ASSOCIATING WITH THE WORK OF JEOSEPH BEUYS, WHO LEAD THE WAY IN THIS NEW EXPANSION, PELLEGRIN’S WORK HAS A LIKENESS IN THE SENSE THAT IT HAS THAT AURA OF MEMORY, HISTORY, AND CULTURAL HERITAGE. BEUYS’ MATERIALS WERE ORGANIC AND ARCHAIC AND PELLEGRIN’S ARE CULTURAL AND ARTHISTORICAL, BUT THE WAY OF COLLECTING ARTEFACTS AND OBJECTS, ASSEMBLING AND ARRANGING THEM IN THE SPACE WITH METAFORIC FORMATS IS A NOTICEABLE AFFILIATION. THE ESSENTIAL CONTINUITY AND STABILITY OF FORM IN OF PELLEGRIN’S WORK SINCE HE STARTED TO RPODUCE IS ALSO QUITE ANALOGOUS TO THE ATTITUDE OF THESE ARTISTS OF THE 70’S. HIS WORK IS EVIDENTLY IS NOT AIMING UTOPISM AND SOCIAL PLASTIC, BUT THE SENSITIVITY OF DEALING WITH THESE MNEMOSIC OBJECTS AND ARTEFACTS HAS ITS TRADITIONS IN THE DECISIVE 70’S.
I WOULD ALSO LIKE TO COMPARE HIS WORK WITH JOHN CAGE, WHO INSTALLED EXPONATES FROM DIFFERENT MUSEUM IN MUNICH INTO THE NEUE PINAKOTHEK UNDER THE TITLE “MUSEUM CIRCLE” (1991). HE USED HIS RANDOM METHOD IN DISPLAYING THESE EXPONATES AND INDICATED TO THE HETEROGENITY AND UN-UNDERSTANDDABLE RATIO OF THEIR TOGETHERNESS. PELLEGRIN USES THE SAME KIND OF EXPONATES COLLECTED FROM ANTIQUE SHOPS OR BORROWED FROM MUSEUMS, BUT HIS WAY OF BRINGING THEM TOGETHER IS MINUTELY CALCULATED AND DISPLAYS AN INTENTIONAL POETIC AND AESTHETIC ORDER. HOWEVER, I WILL AGAIN SAY THAT LIKE BEUYS AND CAGE HIS INTENTION IS TO GET AWAY FROM THE TRIVIALITY, BANALITY AND FRIVILITY OF THE CONSUMTION CULTURE. AND GUIDE THE VIEWER ENTER INTO A PHILOSOPICAL JOURNEY THROUGH OBJECTS AND ENVIRONMENTS. IN THE TIMES OF BEUYS AND CAGE ALL THESE ATRIBUTES OF SO CALLED LOW CULTURE OR POPULAR CULTURE WERE DISTANCED FROM THE ART JARGON AS WELL AS FROM THE AGENDA OF THE INTELLECTUAL ARTIST. TODAY IN THE AGE OF POST-POP, POST-MEDIA ART WHERE LOW AND POPULAR ARE MATERIALS OF TRANSGRESSION FOR ARTISTS, PELLEGRIN’S WORK IS SIGNIFICANTLY EXTENDED BEYOND THE PROVOCATION OF NEO-LIBERAL CAPITALIST TRAPPINGS AND IMPLEMENTS. HE SKILFULLY INVOLVES THE MEANING OF PARTICULAR HISTORICAL/TRADITIONAL AND MODERN OBJECTS INTO THE HISTORICAL AND ARCHITECTURAL ENVIRONMENT.
HIS WORK FOR AND IN ISTANBUL CONSISTS OF MANY LAYERS MERGING THE ARTIST (AS SELFPORTRAIT), THE SELECTED HISTORICAL ENVIRONMENTS, THE COLLECTED/ASSEMBLED OBJECTS AND THE CITY AS THE SUBJECT OF THE WORK. THE ARTIST ENTERS INTO ISTANBUL, INTO THIS SCENE OF RESEARCH AND DISCOVERY WITH THE AIM OF CREATING A VERY SUBJECTIVE ORDER BETWEEN THE CITY’S TREASURES OR HERITAGE AND THE OBJECTS CHOOSEN BY HIM TO EXPRESS, EXPLAIN OR CONVEY HIS PERCEPTIONS, THOUGHTS AND FEELINGS.
THE TITLES OF HIS WORK REVEAL HIS APPROACH AND METHOD OF DEALING WITH A COMPLICATED SUBJECT MATTER, IN THIS CASE ISTANBUL.
THE QUESTION, THE MEMORY, THE CONTINUITY, THE PRESENCE, THE IDENTITY THE TRIBUTE # 1, THE TRIBUTE # 2, THE CONSTRUCTION, THE MEASURE #1, THE MEASURE #2, THE TRANSMIGRATION, THE DEATH, THE SIGNS, THE GHOST, THE MUSIC, THE THOUGHT, THE ENERGY, THE MULTIPLICITY # 1, THE MULTIPLICITY # 2, THE WILL, THE JOURNEY, THE DREAM
LINGUISTICALLY AND PHILOSOPHICALLY THESE ARE THE ATTRIBUTRES THAT DESCRIBE ISTANBUL’S POSITION IN WORLD HISTORY AS A CITY OF CONTINUITY AND INTERRUPTIONS, OF SETTLEMENT AND MIGRATION, OF LIFE AND DEATH, OF CHAOS AND ORDER. PELLEGRIN HANDLES THE CITY WITH POETIC CARE AND RESPECT BY USING NOBLE WORDS ALMOST BLESSING IT. AT THE SAME TIME WITH THESE TITLES HE NARRATES HIS EXPERIENCE AND METHOD OF UNDERSTANDING THE SPIRIT OF ISTANBUL.
THE COLLECTED OBJECTS, THE READY MADES THAT ARE PEACEFULLY PLACED ON THE STONES OF A FOUNTAIN OR A TOMB CREATE A SWINDEL OF ANTAGONISM; THEY BEAR A DOUBLE POINT OF VIEW. AS AN OBJECT/ARTEFACT/TOOL OF EVERYDAY USE THEY REFLECT THE PRESENT CIVILISATION- EVEN IF SOME OF THESE OBJECTS ARE ALSO HISTORICAL – AND THE ARTISTS IDENTITY AS A PECULIAR COLLECTOR. HOWEVER, BY PLACING THESE OBJECTS/ARTEFACTS/TOOLS INTO THE HISTORICAL ARCHITECTURAL ENVIRONMENT PELLEGRIN CREATES NEW MEANINGS FOR THESE OBJECTS AS WELL AS FOR THE ARCHITECTURE. THE VIEWER EXPERIENCES A SUBVERSIVE EFFECT, A GAP OPENS IN THE AESTHETIC PERCEPTION WHICH IS NOT RELATED TO THE OBJECT ITSELF BUT TO THE SELECTION AND ASSIGNMENT OF THE PLACE.
INBETWEEN THE PHOTOS OF THE INSTALLATION WHICH IN FACT ARE THE PRODUCTS OF A PERFOMANCE PELLEGRIN HAS REALIZED AS A VISITOR LEAVING HIS TRIBUTES TO THE EACH SELECTED ARCHITECTONIC PLACE/SPACE, SELFPORTRAITS IN VARIOUS POSITIONS INDICATE HIS AMBIGUOUS PRESENCE WITHIN THIS CITY ODYSEE. BY INSERTING HIMSELF INTO THE CATALOGUE PELLEGRIN DESIGNATES IT INTO A BOOK OF DOUBLE NATURE AND KNOWLEDGE: IT IS A SUBJECTIVE VISUAL CHRONICLE OF ISTANBUL AS WELL AS AN ACCOUNT OF AN ARTIST DEALING WITH A SELF-INFLICTED TASK OF DECIPHERING THE COMPLEXITY OF THIS CITY.

Interview with Maurizio Pellegrin

Thursday, July 10, 2008
BERAL MADRA: YOU ARE A MOBILE ARTIST TRAVELLING BETWEEN VENICE AND NEW YORK WHEN NOT TO MENTION ALL THE OTHER CITIES YOU HAVE BEEN VISITING FOR YOUR WORK. ISTANBUL ENTERED INTO YOUR AGENDA IN 2000 ON THE OCCASION OF THE GROUP SHOW CURATED BY VITTORIO URBANI IN THE MODEST SPACE OF BORUSAN ART GALLERY. IT SEEMS THAT SINCE THAN ISTANBUL BECAME ANOTHER OBSESSION FOR YOU. I WOULD LIKE TO KNOW THE SPIRITUAL, MENTAL AND PRACTICAL PROCESS OF GETTING INVOLVED WITH A CITY AS AN ARTIST, WRITER AND PHILOSPHER?
MAURIZIO PELLEGRIN: There are cities in which you get involved and other cities, no matter what you do, but you cannot have a deal with.
As it happen in life, sometime it depends on you or it depends from the other side or it is a mutual business.
This is just to say that it is not an automatic procedure and does not happen all the time.
I do not even think there is a process as well; I would prefer to use the word chance. In addition sometime the relation rests only on a spiritual level, in other cases it travels on mental channels and in some cases it is able to become a practical event.
It is quite obvious that a city is many things and hundreds of scholars could easily explain and focus on this, offering different perspectives for different artists and so on. It has been important to my encounter with the city something apparently not noticeable or relevant: the sound of Istanbul.
It is that noise between the things, that constant agitation, never peaceful, a wave without a precise code. It is something dramatic and tragic, beyond our desire or expectations. Every city has a sound, Venice has a particular sound that I recognise immediately: an acute sound immediately suffocated, even more in the winter with the fog. New York beyond the usual noise has a sort of inner tumult.
The other thing beyond the light in which I get involved is the energy created and propelled by a not precise source but by various different centres. Nothing is in order or linear, nothing is circular as well. A sort of order-disorder that at the end is able to balance the force.
In term of relation you can be against a city, you can resist to a city, you maintain a sort of isolation in a city, and you can be physically in but with your mind far away. It depends from your behaviour and state of the mind and at the end by your inner reason to be in a place.
My first approach with Istanbul at the beginning has been only related to my mind, later I have been able to establish a spiritual relationship related to my real desire to be connected at another level.
Only years later again I was able to translate in some parts my emotions and state of the mind and spirit in practical events, works of art or exhibitions.
I think it is not easy and requires an amount of humility and desire of listening at different levels.
My approach is often driven by an action, or in other cases my reaction is simultaneous, or sometime I discover I had a connection only years later with the use of memories and objects.
I do not want to forget that the relation with Istanbul, being a Venetian, has obviously a different special meaning, which is based on historical and legendary mutual exchanges and fighting, relevant for the development of both the cities.
BERAL MADRA: SINCE A DECADE ISTANBUL IS GETTING THE ATTENTION OF WORLD INTELLECTUALS AND ARTISTS; MOST OF THEM INDICATE THAT THIS CITY IS FULL OF CONTRADICTIONS, HAS A PARTICULAR CHAOS AND IS EXTREMELY INSPIRATIONAL. YET, I AM OBSERVING THAT MOST OF THESE PEOPLE- EVEN YOU- ARE NOT LIVING AND WORKING IN ISTANBUL AS THEY WOULD LIVE IN PARIS, LONDON, BERLIN, THEY ARE IN FACT VISITING. IS THIS SHORT ENCOUNTER ENOUGH TO KNOW THIS CITY? OR IS IT THIS SHORT ENCOUNTER THAT MAKES IT MORE ATTRACTIVE?
MAURIZIO PELLEGRIN: Generally, I do not think the short encounter is enough. It is not enough an entire life to know ourselves and I suppose we can apply the same principle to a city that it is in a constant transformation. I am also a little bit against the common stereotype of the visitors that found the city in few days so marvellous or enchanting and so on. It is the same banal comment of people for example about their trip in India. The most of us start with an approach typical of the predator, we modify the city in relation to our needs and we want to encounter something that it is already in our mind. In the same time it is also true that after a profound knowledge or experience of the city it could happen that you loose that natural approach, giving space to an analysis more complete or profound but without that immediacy. Consequently changing the parameters of the connection a new series of reactions will be established. It is more or less the same difference between a love story and an affair. In addition I am often sometime suspicious of the artist’s approach to a city, and even more of the architect’s approach.
BERAL MADRA: YOUR WORK, PARTICULARLY YOUR 2005 VENICE WORK IS A TOTAL INSTALLATION THAT PRESENTS “MUSEUM IN MUSEUM” AND I KNOW THAT YOUR ISTANBUL WORK IS AN EXTENTION OF THIS VENICE WORK. WE KNOW THAT EVEN NOW MUSEUMS PLAY AN IMPORTANT ROLE AS REGARDS TO THE RELATION OF ART AND SOCIETY. CAN WE EXPLAIN YOUR APPROACH OF MULTIPLYING THE CONTENT OF THE MUSEUM WITH THE COLLECTION OF YOUR SELECTION AS AN INTELLECTUAL AND PILOSOPHICAL INTERVENTION TO THE IDEOLOGY AND INTENTION OF THE MUSEUM? WHAT DO YOU WANT TO PROPOSE TO THE PUBLIC WITH THIS INTERVENTION?
When I create a site specific work or an intervention in a museum collection I am going to operate an addition or a subtraction or a substitution and definitely a change. In relation to the way to proceed, your intervention could be scarcely visible and announced, or very implosive, but this at the end determines only the time of reaction of the public. Sometime you want an active viewer in other cases you want a passive viewer. I notice that there are museums where the display of the collection is organized around a philological agenda, in other is related to a timeline, in other it is just a collection of artefacts able to testify this or that. In any case a level of energy is established. I like to work around that energy, creating different tensions, and often offering to the public a sort of different possibility that it becomes many possibilities in a time. With my interventions I work on categories of objects, and adding or transforming the museum’ objects automatically I operate a change in the hierarchies of the elements displayed, their symbolic power, and their status.
In addition to the objects plays an important role the space in which this operation takes place. All the characteristics of volume, mass, form, dimension, light and temperature are the elements that influence the communication and underline the intervention.
The viewer can see or not, or it can only perceive the swift with different states of the mind. Personally I prefer the museum with a collection of different ages, for the contemporary art I prefer the small collections. I find often the big museum of contemporary art a little bit sad; I perceive the same when I go with my children to a zoo. I like complication and implication, interrelation and different platforms. I like also the idea that it is the artist in charge and it is not only the curator or the museum that always decides the display. I never understood why the museums do not have artists as consultants, or the major international exhibitions do not have a number of artists in the board as well.
NOVEMBER 2008

BRÜKSEL'DE ISTANBUL SANAT MERKEZİ

ISTANBUL DIPTYCHS

Ahmet Elhan, Neriman Polat, Gül Ilgaz, Maurizio Pellegrin, Nataliya Lyakh, Başir Barlakov, Şakir Gökçebağ, Sencer Vardarman, Sıtkı Kösemen, Xurban-collective, Ali Taptık ve Ergin Çavuşoğlu

CURATED BY BERAL MADRA

ORGANIZED BY BM SUMA CONTEMPORARY ART CENTER
Istanbul Center in Brussels is presenting an exhibition introducing contemporary artists from Istanbul with their paintings, drawings, photography, video and installations. The works mainly deal with architectonic or urban cityscapes, daily life topics, traditions and modernities and global pursuits.

Why focus on Istanbul in these exhibitions?

First, since almost two decades Istanbul has evolved into a vital site of contemporary art exhibitions. While in economy and politics the city fulfils its function as a command point of global marketplace and a production site for information economy, the culture and art accordingly unfolds its new forms and dimensions.

Secondly, the city concentrates on diversity even though the globalisation process has introduced a strong unifying corporate and commodity culture, which is fairly dominant in the centers and the periphery of the vast city. The diversity emanates from the continuous immigrations from all directions, from Anatolia in the past, from Eastern and Southern neighbours in the present. An undercurrent amalgam of cultures is making up a redundancy and multiplicity of traditional and modern cultures and identities.

Thirdly, in the heterogeneous contemporary art productions since the beginning of the 90’s, the city appears as an integral part of the micro and macro narratives, representations, simulations and metaphors. In the paintings, photographs, videos and installations of a large number of artists we can trace, recognise and perceive Istanbul as the reason of the work, while not directly the theme or the subject.

Istanbul is one of the most enticing cities of this world; and this has been elaborately expressed in many ways through different art forms, when art was about the Beautiful and the Sublime. We know that, after the erosion of traditional and modern worldviews and values things are different now; artists do not produce simple beautiful, sublime works. Yet, the culture maintains its function as being a part of social life and the critical conscious of the society, and artists face the situation in which patterns for orientation and action of the past no longer work. They have to find new options and actions to provide answers.

Yet, these answers are most of the time private, subjective, hermetic and closed to direct access. The works of the artists provide visual tools of perception and reflection and open our minds to the diversity of thinking and creativity.

The exhibition presents ten individual artistic positions of visual interpretations on Istanbul together with their distinctive selections of literary texts and poems of renowned writers and poets from Turkey.
The ever popular form of diptych, that displays two images attached to each other is being used here as a representation of verbal and visual culture with the claim that there is an ongoing spirited competition between the verbal and visual culture, regardless of the occupation of electronic visual information.
This ancient tool of representation has its modern and post-modern examples in today’s art, mostly related to the dichotomy of socio-political state of affairs or philosophical and theoretical debates and criticisms. Within the post-modern production the form of diptych served as an instrument of influencing the viewer’s attention and perception towards a more elaborate interpretation and comparison of his/her position in relation to the presented image. The division of the image clearly calls for a division of thinking. In today’s culture of visual knowledge we are still tied up to two kinds of knowledge as described in the prophetic book Orientalism of Edward Said. He indicates the distinction between knowledge “that is the result of understanding, compassion, careful study and analysis” and “knowledge that is part of an overall campaign of self-affirmation”.

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