Floor, 2005
plastic floor covering element

…Özlem Günyol’s installation entitled Floor aims at creating a small-scale walking barrier of frequent metal bars placed on the grey marble floor of the Borusan Art Gallery. The work consists of plastic elements, which generally are used for fixing together floor covering materials like wood or laminate. The plastic elements are placed on the gallery’s floor at certain intervals. To be able to feel the most significant characteristic of the work, viewers have to walk some distance. These few steps in a short distance are so effective that they can make the viewers fall down.

[…]While referring to the decorative characteristics of the gallery’s floor, the frequently placed plastic elements that cover the metal bars also create an influence on how visitors view the other works shown in the exhibition space. While structuring the choreography of the viewer’s steps, Günyol uses the minimalist form language: although she repeats the elements at frequent intervals, she does not fill up the entrance level of the gallery but gives a sense of her work’s limits at the first sight. Thus, the artist introduces to the viewers, the differences between the “before” and “her own interpretation”, “simultaneously”. At this point, one should recall the viewers who stumble over the elements and trying not to fall down, turn their eyes to the floor, and get an impression of “What is that?” on their faces.

Necmi Sönmez, Stimmen, Nachtdurchwachsen, Stränge
Exhibition Catalogue (Borusan Culture and Art Center, Istanbul, 2005)

Installation view; Borusan Art Gallery, Istanbul
photos 1,2: Günyol & Kunt
photos 3,4,5: Ali Konyalı