Prohibited Letters

Prohibited Letters, 2019-ongoing
video installation
digital video, loop

The work departs from slogans prohibited from the street by the Istanbul Governorate during the 1 May demonstrations of 2018. In this video, we watch endless meanderings of letter groupings that are banned from gathering in a certain organized way, in a void. The video preserves the potential of the letters to suddenly come together to form words, and the words to form sentences.

Installation view; Dirimart, Istanbul
photo: Nazlı Erdemirel

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Mr. Bertelli, you are right. The profile still continues.

Mr. Bertelli, you are right. The profile still continues., 2019

sculpture
stainless steel
29×27.9×27.9 cm
wooden pedestal: 35x35x145 cm

Bust of Mussolini produced by Bertelli in 1933 was constructed by circumvolving the dictator’s profile 360° thus describing him as a godly eye that can look and see in all directions, and control everything around him. The bust trying to control everything around by continuously turning his head (in fact, the work is produced on a turning lathe) becomes mechanized and insensitized, completely devoid of human feelings and expressions. The head gets insensitized as it accelerates, it accelerates as it gets insensitized, gets mechanized detaching itself from humans and all vulnerabilities pertaining to them. The sculpture depicts the dictator so well that Mussolini declared it as his official bust.

Mr Bertelli, you are right. The profile still continues. is a reconsideration of Bertelli’s sculpture after eighty-five years. In this work, the understanding represented by the living profile of Mussolini depicted with Bertelli’s Continous Profile gives way to an anonymous skull continuously turning and harming around.

Installation view; Dirimart, Istanbul
photo: Nazlı Erdemirel

Untitled

Untitled, 2019 – ongoing project

fine art print on Hahnemühle photo rag ultra smooth 305 g/m² mounted on alu-dibond 150×225 cm

Each painting in the Untitled series contains the pleading of one of the journalists who is under arrest or prosecuted due to his/her articles.

Installation view; Dirimart, Istanbul
photo: Nazlı Erdemirel

M

M, 2019

artist book
365 pages, b/w offset print 10×15 cm

M is a book designed in small dictionary format, a 365-page diary; its pages are filled with words taken from a pool of words obtained from headlines and the first pages of various widely circulated daily national newspapers in Turkey, throughout 2018. “M” also refers to “medya” [media], “manşet” [headline], and “manipülasyon” [manipulation] in Turkish.

photos: Nazlı Erdemirel

Deadlock

Deadlock, 2019

painted stainless steel
each letter; 3×10 cm, installation dimensions are variable

Deadlock rings in our ears as the answer of Donald Rumsfeld to a question regarding the alleged weapons in Iraq in 2002, using the central column of the gallery and the words KNOWN and UNKNOWN revolving around it. Using the four-edged structure of the column, the words keep turning and turning around the edges within an endless cycle/chase. This cycle consisting of plus and minus poles opens the work to various combinations of reading.

known known

known unknown

unknown unknown

unknown known

Installation view; Dirimart, Istanbul
photo: Nazlı Erdemirel

There are things you don’t know that we know

There are things you don’t know that we know, 2019

installation
print on newspaper paper 67×1820 cm

There are things you don’t know that we know detaches letters from 32 daily Turkish newspaper names, maintaining their styles to use them as material for newly constructed sentence. The visual aesthetic of the sentence is composed by letters with different fonts, recalling a construct we know from crime movies: in those movies the character, trying to avoid leaving a trace uses letters he/she cuts from magazines, newspapers, instead of using his/her handwriting.

Installation view; Dirimart, Istanbul
photos 1-7: Nazlı Erdemirel, 8-12: Günyol&Kunt

pop-ups

pop-ups, 2018

installation
decor flange, dimensions variable

Having destroyed the local neighborhood culture in cities, the housing estate aesthetic lead to the standardization of the balcony railing. These extremely kitsch décor elements proliferated like an epidemic, appearing on the railings of apartments, metro stations, and public buildings. And then these flanges were “planted” in the middle of the exhibition space like freshly sprung grass, similar to all of those construction sites devastatingly erasing lives of dwellers.

Installation view; Ark Kültür, Istanbul
photos: Barış Gültürk

Materialistic Paintings

Materialistic Paintings, 2018 – ongoing series

metal powder, 300 g/m² Hahnemühle mould-made print making paper each 76×82 cm

Series of paintings made with the metals used in the coin production of the most traded currencies such as the US Dollar, Euro, Pound Sterling, Japanese Yen etc. Each painting includes the metals that are connected to the specific coin of the related currency. Areas that are occupied by these metals on paintings’ surfaces are in proportion to the amount that are used in the corresponding coin.

photo 2: Installation view; QNB Finanzbank Art Collection, Istanbul
photo: Hadiye Cangökçe

photo 6: Installation view; Dirimart, Istanbul
photos 1-7, 9-12, 14-17, 19, 20, 22, 23, 26, 29-31, 33, 35-43: Nazlı Erdemirel

photos 8, 13, 18, 21, 24, 25, 27, 28, 32, 34, 44: Katrin Binner

SEPARATELYTOGETHER

SEPARATELYTOGETHER letters, numbers, punctuation and other signs, 2018

public space installation
ink-jet print on vinyl
1486×1738 cm

The work exhibited as the second edition of the Yanköşe public art project on Meclis-i Mebusan Street, Kabataş, Istanbul presents the most recent version of the text of the Constitution of the Republic of Turkey, in a large format pattern. All of the elements that make up the Constitution desert the sentences and paragraphs they belong to, in order to meet other elements similar to them, and the lines they form transform into straight lines that intersect but extend out along different axes to compose an abstract, chaotic view. In this way, these elements, which contain the potentiality of the text of the constitution, are emancipated in a sense, and open a door for sentences that have not yet been formed. The work focuses on the Constitution, and encourages thought on the possibility of individuals from a certain land to live together, not despite their differences, but with their differences.

Installation view; Yanköşe, Meclis-i Mebusan Caddesi,
Kabataş, Istanbul
photos: Flufoto, Istanbul

Where am I? As if in a dream… Did we arrive?

Where am I? As if in a dream… Did we arrive?

2016–18 concrete sculpture (permanent installation)
100x285x950 cm

A permanent public space project realized for the city of Rüsselsheim, the sculpture comprises three parts: the migration route of a Syrian woman to Europe, writings and the sitting area. The curved form of the sculpture represents the stages of the Balkan route from Syria to Europe. Writing based on an interview with a Syrian woman who traversel this route, concentrates on the common feelings having had and questions being asked at the very moment arrival: “Where am I?” is the first question asked when trying to understand the people, their behaviors and the structure of the local society, to position yourself in
this structure. “As if in a dream…” expresses the range of feelings from ambiguity to success. After all of the struggles, the migrant physically reaches his/her new home to start a new life. However, in his/her mind there are still questions: is it true? have I really arrived? “Did we arrive?” is a question asked to the society living in the country of arrival. The project combines the route and the writing with a large sitting platform. Sitting, as an activity, associates with settlement and settlement is about becoming local to a place.

Installation view; Kunstpfads am Mainvorland, Rüsselsheim
photos 1-4, 11-19: Günyol&Kunt
5-10: Stangl AG