Category: Genel

29.05.2019 – 20.07.2019

Merdiven Art Space hosts Susan Hefuna’s solo exhibition titled “Screens” between May 29 and July 20. The artist, interpreting the images of two different continents from her memory, with her productive practice ranging from drawing to sculpture, installation, video, photograph, and performance, brings together a selection of her works which she called “works not carrying passports.”

As an artist who has experienced both sides of the unfinished bridge between the West and the East, Susan Hefuna’s practice focuses on the connections and disengagements between the period, space, cultural codes, and language. The artist, associating the concept of the foreigner with the oppression caused by being displaced from an unknown land, depicts a system where the borders become evident instead of disappearing and the spaces are narrowed rather than expanding metaphorically. Hefuna reveals that in this new order all ideological, geographic and economic possibilities, seeming accessible, are all restricted. The exhibition bringing together the Mashrabiya series, which has an important place in her artistic practice and the Masks, considered among the fascinating examples of traditional wood carving focuses on the screening function of the works conceptually.

Mashrabiyas, where the artist referred the exterior element she distinguished observing the cityscape of Cairo, Egypt where she spent her childhood, and never forgot is inspired by Mashrabiyas architecture responding the search need for hiding, sheltering and intimacy, and the balanced dialogue between minimalist contemporary expressionism. The artist, amplifying the meditative aspect of the screens filtering the light, with the help of abstract sayings and words, questions the borders between public and private space, and the things belonging to interior and exterior. The masks, inspired by her European roots animates different characters created in each village as a tradition of a festival organized at the end of the winter,  in the South of Germany. The festival, where the people behind the masks are obliged to tell the truth once in a year, reveals how the cultural identity inherited from generation to the next generations in each family.

With her genderless and nationless works, Susan Hefuna destructs the East-West symbolism, still framed with stereotypical judgments in contrast to the tendency to globalize, thanks the subtle language pertains to her.

28.02.2019 – 04.05.2019

Merdiven Art Space is pleased to announce the exhibition titled “Swaddling the Baby” by Gülsün Karamustafa, one of the most prominent artists of the contemporary art scene in Turkey, between February 28 and April 13. The artist, focusing on the striking events of recent history, whose practice ranges from video to sculpture, painting to installation and spans more than 40 years, designs an installation titled the same as the exhibition, for Merdiven Art Space.

Karamustafa who addresses to sociopolitical themes such as cultural patterns, social codes, identity struggle, migration, gender, political impotence in her works, reveals visual expressions featuring subtle criticism. The artist whose expressive language has been shaped by pop culture, folklore and autobiography-based elements since the 70s, focuses on sensitivities that inflicted both social and individual wounds. “Swaddling the Baby,” inspired by Karamustafa’s trip to Florence in 1969, when she was a student, was revived after a visit to “Ospedale degli Innocenti,” an old orphanage building designed by Filippo Brunelleschi. Handcrafted by Andrea Della Robbia, the wall engravings accompanying the dramatic story of the building and featuring swaddled baby drawings refer to the tragedies that have been continuing to be relevant since the 15th century. The exhibition titled “Swaddling the Baby” focusing on the children who are the victims of their time because of the wars that have been continuing for the ages, massive disasters, migrations and diasporas, reinterprets the state of being in need of help.

Gülsün Karamustafa, revealing the fate of the victims who were able to luckily survive against the political, economic and social crises, brings a regular day at an orphanage into the gallery space by means of a black and white video installation. “Swaddling the Baby” exposing a striking analysis regarding the individual and social void caused by the loss invites the spectators to a journey through the basis of purity.

21.12.2018 – 26.01.2019

Merdiven Art Space presents a collaboration between two great contemporary artists from different generations, between December 21 and January 26. The exhibition titled “In the Beginning Dazzling Night,” conceived with Sarkis’ participation upon the invitation of Berat Işık, opens its doors for the spectators on the longest night of the year.

Berat Işık, who is mainly known with his sociopolitical works, takes the book titled “Blindness” by José Saramago as the reference point for this exhibition. Along with his wall installation titled “Dazzling,” the artist working in various mediums, ranging from video to photograph; installation to sculpture, attributes a symbolic meaning to the source of light which dominates the space. The artist who placed a panel consisting of 54 blinker lights in a golden frame, which has a kitsch aesthetic, violates the pictorial limit defined by the frame. The blinkers, known as the warning lights of the official cars and military zones, are in the centre of the work and refer to the blindness imposed. The dazzling white light presents a simulation of social blindness developed against the tools of the government, power and system metaphorically. Included in the exhibition with his video titled “Au Commencement la Nuit” (In the Beginning Night), dated 1997, Sarkis was invited by Berat Işık with great excitement in order to strengthen the conceptual frame, during the production process of the work.

The idea of including Sarkis in the exhibition “in a visible or invisible way” develops a holistic structure which envelope each other in each layer and dominates the space as it deepens. The images and the sounds filling the room by inspiring from the contrast between the dark and the light and functioning as both the burden and the shield help the spectators face with the past.

The fact that the exhibition provides an opportunity to get the insights into the period between the time when Malevich pushed the limits of Modernism with his painting titled “White on White” and today, consolidates the art historical references of the exhibition. Therefore, the exhibition exposes the dazzling show of these two works engaging in a perfect dialogue in sense of space, visual language and the intellectual structure.

09.11.2018 – 08.12.2018

Merdiven Art Space hosts Neriman Polat’s solo exhibition titled “Merciless” between November 9 and December 8. The artist who focuses on themes such as sociological layers, urban, woman, and gentrification, questions the discrimination and violence against children in the city. “Merciless” which is designed as a site-specific installation by bringing together the images belonging to the domestic and external living spaces under the same atmosphere, exposes Neriman Polat’s competence in interfering with the ready-made, which is supported by connotations.

In this period, where social violence becomes more and more visible Polat, referring to the social and urban corruption through the fragility of children and questioning the protected structure of the family concept, depicts houses lacking compassion. The brick wall built at the space reminds of the facades at the forgotten streets of the city and features a photo of a collapsed house. Patterns on the kids’ blankets that were transformed into dramatic images with a strong discourse thanks to the artist’s intervention, and the interior space painted into a familiar colour that is usually used in the kids’ room, expose the traces of a heartless world. Neriman Polat draws attention to the hopeless future by focusing on being silenced and gender codes with her reinterpreted drawings.

The artist not only visualizes the fact that the violence behind the fragile walls of the houses that are constantly damaged both physically and metaphorically, without agitation but also internalizes the dreams coming out of the houses. The cold blankets, subject of the web of violence preparing a ground for a collapse that cannot be ignored, warms neither the hearts nor the bodies.