On Jan. 13, 1898, the Parisian literary newspaper l’Aurore (The Dawn) published a 4,000-word article by French novelist Emile Zola, written in the form of an open letter to the president of France, entitled “J’Accuse!” (I Accuse!). The novelist blamed the government for injustice and inequality in society.
Because of the popularity of the letter, even in the English-speaking world, it has become a common expression of outrage and accusation against the current social structure. The novelist raised awareness of injustice and inequality in society.
Zola, as a writer, used a discourse as a flag of a certain ideology in 1898. What is currently happening in the world, however, is slightly different. Instead of using mottos and slogans, contemporary artists are taking a different approach to the current problems of society.
Even though today in Turkey it is almost impossible to see such an event or accusation, the young and emerging artists at the Borusan Art Center are showing the courage to raise questions about the country’s social, cultural and economic situation.
The latest exhibition at the Borusan Art Center, entitled “Considering the Circumstance: The Second Show,” raises questions about Turkey’s ever-changing social and cultural, and politic and economic situations.
While doing this, however, unlike Zola the Borusan Art Center artists refuse to use discourse as a flag of a social ideology. Instead, they use different kinds of approaches to try to draw attention to concepts that remain in the background.
“Considering the Circumstances” is an “open-ended” title that can be stretched into any meaning, according to exhibition curator Necmi Sönmez.
The fact that 10 artists who have faced thousands of “situations” and unwittingly questioned and sought answers to each with their own individual method will exhibit works that have never been on display before, most of which were produced in the workshops of the art center itself, has led Sönmez to assemble them on a “common ground.”
It is possible to find different art disciplines in the exhibition, such as media art, painting, sculpture, lightbox and photography.
Sönmez used multi-layered exhibition design in the “Considering the Circumstances” exhibition. “Although ‘Considering the Circumstances’ is a group presentation, it is almost impossible to find commonalities and overlaps among the participating artists and the works they exhibit,” he said.
The relations between all the works are very important in the whole exhibition because the design of the exhibition lets the viewer take a journey through the artists’ brains, in their approaches, among their works and in their way of seeing the country and its problems.
Journey of a viewer
The design of the whole exhibition leads the audience to one artwork after another, while letting them to question the situation.
In this case, there are two kinds of journeys. One is the journey of the audience and the other is the journey of an artist, which he or she has been going through.
Passing the threshold can lead viewers to discover lots of things in terms of Turkey’s general socio-cultural situation.
İlke Yılmaz’s work, titled “Hey You!” can be evaluated within the sculpture discipline at first notice. The artist has created a full-sized sculpture of a woman. However, the woman’s figure, in the form of a trash bag, is interesting initially because of the missing pieces of her body.
The artist’s preference for not using the female body is not a coincidence. Yılmaz tries to tell us about the current situation of women in Turkey. The sculpture has different interpretations and evolutions in acceptance, gender and questioning of identity. It is possible to read third-page news stories in Turkish dailies that are about dead women’s missing body parts. The trash bag covering the sculpture’s body signifies death, problems about gender and crimes against women in Turkey. The self-rotating figure turns and points at the audience.
When the viewer moves among the works, it is possible to see Nejat Satı’s work, entitled “Is it only the bottle that explodes?” The work ironically depicts the situation of how pharmaceutical manufacturing companies treat the masses. The exploding and shattering bottle also finds itself in a relationship with İlke Yılmaz’s decomposed sculpture.
Burçak Konukman’s video work, “Timeless,” opens another dimension in the journey of the audience. The artist questions the relations between artist and institution, the position of culture managers and the active players in the Istanbul art market. The artist, in his video performance, claims that artists are members of a working class. The main purpose of this work is not “venting.” Konukman reminds the audiences of the conditions in which artists work in the liberal economical sense.
After questioning the liberal economic situation, Engin Beyaz’s work leads audiences to question women and pornography. Used as a symbol of fertility in the carpets and rugs woven in the Middle East countries, Beyaz uses an “arms akimbo” motif. The female figure stands upside down and in its head audiences notice pornographic pictures. Beyaz also uses geometrical units known as the “Star of David.” The Star of David and the akimbo combination makes for quite a different historical, social and economic result.
One of the most interesting works at the exhibition is Sibel Diker’s video and four digital prints. Diker questions Istanbul and how life is changing in the city. Starting from the French thinker Marc Augé’s concept of “non-place” as the area where the human being is anonymous, Diker produces her work on her own impressions of Istanbul.
The artist’s impression of Istanbul is always under construction. It is also possible to discover how Istanbul becomes a city of construction. The artist also suggests that because of lots of buildings and construction and ever-rising population, living in the city gets harder. Residents have to give up their passions and their likes. The four photographs belonging to a young mariner are displayed next to the video work. They are like the journal of this mariner. Diker refers to the tradition of German romantic art by photographing a mariner backwards. The mariner facing the other way searches for a new place to live. Apparently, it is very hard to find that place in Istanbul.