Curated by M. Wenda Koyuncu, Raziye Kubat’s exhibition “Stonehead–Time Traveller” will be on view at Merdiven Art Space between December 5, 2024 and January 10, 2025. Referring to her childhood connection with stone, Kubat describes her return—after over 40 years—to the mountainous homeland where she was born as a journey through time, which inspired the title of the exhibition.
Carved, touched, or minimally altered stones, along with works on paper, canvases, sand, found objects, video, and text form the exhibition’s multilayered structure. Emerging from the artist’s birthplace, shaped by its unique climate and geography, the exhibition marks a pivotal moment in Kubat’s journey as an independent artist. A booklet accompanies the show, featuring excerpts from the notebooks Kubat kept before and during the production process over the past three to four years.
“In Stonehead, Raziye Kubat opens a discussion on the symptoms produced by the folds of thought, through the images she touches and evokes. Reengaging with these silent existents—entities that seep into every corner of thought and narrative—Kubat focuses on the presence of another mind, another spirit, from other worlds. She reveals the fractured states of a path taken without listening to stone or resting against the earth. When observing these composite elements that come together with soil and stone, one recalls a significant concept by Slavoj Žižek: looking awry. Inspired by Lacan’s notion of ‘the real,’ Žižek speaks of an irreconcilable gap, a misalignment between subject and world. This misalignment means that the human subject’s understanding of the world will always remain incomplete. Kubat positions herself within this gap and absence, turning the deficiency defined in stone, soil, plant, and animal toward the human subject. She prompts us to consider the rupture within the human’s dominant identity in all discourse, the inaccessibility of these other beings, and the distance from this understanding. Looking awry doesn’t critique a thought itself, but rather the framework around that thought. Kubat, instead of critiquing the gaze that looks down on the silent, inanimate world of stone, draws attention to the boundaries of the noisy, animate world.”
— M. Wenda Koyuncu
About Raziye Kubat:
Raziye Kubat was born in Malatya, Turkey. She graduated from the Painting Department of Mimar Sinan University of Fine Arts in 1989. She has held numerous solo exhibitions and participated in many group exhibitions both in Turkey and abroad. She currently lives and works as an independent artist in Istanbul.
