For her first solo show in Mexico, artist Aslı Çavuşoğlu continues her latest project TunState, a multidisciplinary research project initiated in 2018 that traces connections across regions and examines the ways in which lifeforms adapt to endure hostile conditions. The exhibition is named after a biological process called “tun state”, where microscopic organisms known as tardigrades suspend all metabolic functions; a metaphor for resistance, resilience, and regeneration.The works focus on the histories and material transformations of several species of trees from diverse geographic locations. During research trips to the Sonoran Desert, the artist collected bark fragments of the bursera fagaroides tree and, working with a paper restorer, they processed them into handmade paper to draw on. The salvaged bark of the bursera fagaroides recurs across works in the exhibition in combination with handmade paper, leather, and obsidian, natural materials that embody specific histories, processes, and temporalities of transformation. Connecting the landscape of the Americas to her native environment, she has used the pinus brutia or red pine, a tree which grows in the Eastern Mediterranean, to dye fabric and produce suspended columns, relinking the work to the material from which it was made. Through these works, Çavuşoğlu highlights the ways cultures around the world have transformed material forms for utilitarian or symbolic purposes against extinction and existence.

Gordian Knot at Mucem – Museum of the Civilizations of Europe and the Mediterranean, Marseille.

08.02–08.05.2023

The exhibition Alexandria: Past Futures revisits the history and present of the Egyptian city, far from the myths and stereotypes traditionally associated with it. Combining two approaches – archaeological research and contemporary art – it invites us to consider Alexandria from a hitherto unseen angle.

The exhibition presents artefacts covering a period of eight centuries, from the foundation of the city by Alexander the Great (331 BCE) to the advent of Christianity (381 AD). It also includes forays into the vestiges of Byzantine, Arab-Islamic and modern times.

Through this selection of some 200 works and objects from the most important European museum collections, the exhibition shines a light on Alexandria’s heritage and legacy by examining on the one hand its urban, political and religious organisation, and on the other the daily life of its inhabitants, as well as the scientific and philosophical influence of this civilizational high point of the ancient world.

The exhibition also considers contemporary Alexandria, a city marked by constant ecological, social and political erosion, determined by its colonial past and the tumult of globalisation. Along the exhibition visit route, sixteen contemporary artists broaden our view with works that explore the city of today, its complexity and the paradox of its representations, which are marked by a constant back and forth between historical, present and imaginary times.

Focus On
15.12.2022 – 25.02.2023
Vistamare, Milano

Vistamare presents “Focus On”, a new series of projects that, in conjunction with the regular gallery program in Milan, invite artists to create new site specifics works specially conceived for the two lateral and symmetrical rooms of the space. The starting point of Aslı Çavuşoğlu’s (Istanbul, 1982) research is an analysis of examples of resilience and of processes of transformation in nature including non-humans. The artist uses biological facts as a metaphor to probe the various ways in which living creatures respond to inhospitable environments: in order to adapt and survive, all beings are capable of slowing down their biological functions when they face extreme conditions. Çavuşoğlu is interested in the natural phenomena we are increasingly having to deal with as a result of pollution and climate change. In her exploration of these narratives, the artist emphasises material and techniques, creating a visual description of the world and its increasingly violent transformations. The works in this exhibition establish connections with and between materials derived from the nature, using them to construct new natural forms. Each of these contains traces of what it once was and what it will become, in an ongoing inquiry into the meaning of change.

TunState
06.11.2022 – 17.12.2022
Barriera

Barriera presents Aslı Çavuşoğlu’s exhibition TunState, opening alongside Artissima on Sunday November 6th, and continuing through Saturday December 17th. TunState presents a potent metaphor and a playful provocation, asking us to consider the diverse ways in which creatures, human and non-human, respond to existential threats and inhospitable conditions. In a moment when apocalyptic scenarios fueled by prevalent conditions of war, the ravages of global capitalism, and irreversible ecological degradation are proliferating across media sources, Aslı Çavuşoğlu steers her research-based artistic practice towards an inquiry into instances of resilience and regeneration in the natural world. In a series of newly produced works, Çavuşoğlu continues her longstanding exploration of material histories, properties and states.

Artissima Event
Artist Talk: State of Tun
6 November 2022, 14.30–15.30
Milovan Farronato in conversation with artist Aslı Çavuşoğlu

Gordian Knot at Centre for Fine Arts – Bozar, Brussels.

30.09.2022–08.01.2023

Alexandria: Past Futures, an exhibition of some 200 artifacts from major European museum collections, highlights one of the greatest cities of the ancient Mediterranean at the peak of its cultural influence. The exhibition provides a fresh perspective on Alexandria, one of the great centres of ancient civilisation, and sheds light on its urban, political and religious organisations, the everyday life of its citizens, and its influence on science and philosophy, which spanned from the third century B.C. to the fourth century of our era. Some twenty contemporary works of art enhance the theme of the exhibition and, thanks to a carefully designed scenography, provide an analytical and poetic backdrop to its various parts. In addition, incursions into other periods – Byzantine, Arabic, Modern – will enrich the focus of the exhibition and provide a more comprehensive understanding of Alexandria throughout history.

ANNEX at Meşher, Istanbul.

14.09.2022–12.02.2023

The group exhibition I Am Nobody. Are You Nobody Too?, which is inspired by the ancient Greek myth of Echo and Narcissus and their unrequited loves, opened at Meşher on September 14, 2022. The exhibition title is a reference to the Emily Dickinson’s poem “I am nobody! Who are you?” The exhibition invites visitors to a sensitive space, where numerous yous, Is, desires, narratives, images, and experiences are intertwined. It adopts the circular and repetitive structure of the mythological narrative. Valuing the remnants of bygone lives, I Am Nobody. Are You Nobody Too? highlights at the same time the distances that are necessary for things remote, past, or foreign to reach out to us and graft themselves onto our lives.

The Sun Rises in the West and Sets in the East, guest curated by curator and writer Sara Raza, explores social and cultural seismic shifts and how the traditional culture and classification of science, philosophy, biology, and economics have collapsed in contemporary society. The exhibition features 11 contemporary artists who challenge geopolitical narratives, systems, and power dynamics, including new and recent works by Lida Abdul, Kader Attia, Yael Bartana, Aslı Çavuşoğlu, Ergin Çavuşoğlu, Ali Cherri, Anton Ginzburg, Emily Jacir, Nadia Kaabi-Linke, Nyugen E. Smith, and Nari Ward.

Embracing sculpture, mixed-media installation, film, and performance, The Sun Rises in the West and Sets in the East captures the importance of art’s role in inspiring dialogue and reassessing political futures and structures. The exhibition borrows its title and main critical inquiry from a mixture of fable and medieval miniatures which depict the ‘signs of the hour’ in the lead up to the ‘Day of Judgement.’

FutureTense at CAC Brétigny, France

16.01–16.04.2022

A copyleft concept explored across several opuses, “The Real Show” will be rolled out in different locations around the world. The first manifestation, taking place at CAC Brétigny, is the pilot episode of a succession of events that will echo a television or film series model, complete with spin-off, prequel, reboot and sidequel. At once inclusive and introspective, ricocheting around the art centre, online and in the public space through videos, podcasts, programmes, performances and publications, “The Real Show” excavates and exposes the bottom-up and top-down mechanisms of popularity and its representations.

Participating artists:Ask Addoley + Anna (Addoley Dzegede & Anna Ihle), Hannah Black, Aslı Çavuşoğlu,
Gwendal Coulon, Virgile Fraisse, Thomas Geiger, Christian Jankowski, Hanne Lippard, Marie Lukáčová, Erick Meyenberg, Santiago Mostyn, Luis Pazos, Zeyno Pekünlü, Sean Raspet, Martha Rosler, Ghita Skali, in collaboration with Ayla Mrabet and Kaoutar Chaqchaq, Līga Spunde, The Big Conversation Space (Clémence de Montgolfier & Niki Korth), Nora Turato, Zoé Philibert, Qingmei Yao.

Curators: Agnès Violeau and Céline Poulin, assisted by Ariane Guyon.

The Rearview Landscape, or a Trip of Ownership
04.12.2021 – 12.06.2022
UCCA Dune

UCCA Dune presents the group show “The Rearview Landscape, or a Trip of Ownership,” assembling context-specific artworks by nine artists arising from their own personal research and practice, based on the representation of landscapes. The works channel the sceneries observed both on journeys and in daily life into a larger-scale investigation of the global order of manufactured landscapes as shaped by nature, economics, culture, and politics. Through the overlapping of these landscapes and the dialogue between them, the artists attempt to reveal hidden inner connections and power games beneath the surface of our world.

Aslı Çavuşoğlu’s work DDD (Deep Drown Discharge) was inspired by marine mucilage, a collection of organisms that arrived in and occupied the surface and depths of the Sea of Marmara in the summer of 2021. The proliferation of these micro-organisms destroyed the relationship between coastal peoples and the sea. Many locals no longer swim in the sea or eat fish from the Sea of Marmara. Deep sea discharge was considered a primary cause of this natural phenomenon. In a series of etchings, DDD (Deep Drown Discharge) depicts the aftermath of a natural disaster and the organism specimens that scientists discovered when they first sampled the water. DDD (Deep Drown Discharge) uses natural materials and physical metaphors to establish connections between the region and the organisms, attempting to explore the existence of a real boundary in a world closely connected to the marine world yet transcending the similarities among the invasion or proliferation of these organisms, the increasing human population, and the gentrification of many urban neighborhoods. DDD (Deep Drown Discharge) (2021) was commissioned by UCCA.

Lahana Pembesi / Soğan Yeşili / Portakal Mavisi
05.11.2021 – 22.01.2022
EK BİÇ YE İÇ, Istanbul (Gümüşsuyu & Kurtuluş)

Aslı Çavuşoğlu, “Lahana pembesi / Soğan yeşili / Portakal mavisi” adlı kişisel sergisinde, son yıllarda Türkiye’nin farklı bölgelerinde ortaya çıkan tarım inisiyatiflerinin, endüstriyel tarım uygulamalarına karşı geliştirdikleri alternatif yolları, bitkisel boyalarla yaptığı desenler üzerinden anlatıyor. Güncel koşulların daha görünür hale getirdiği tarımsal üretim ve dağıtım krizine alternatif sunan bu inisiyatiflerden ilham alan Çavuşoğlu, üretimi KADIST (Paris) için gerçekleştirilen projeye yeni eserler dahil ederek İstanbul’da sergiliyor. EK BİÇ YE İÇ’in Gümüşsuyu ve Kurtuluş’daki mekânları, yerel üretim ve sürdürülebilir tüketim konularını yeniden düşünmeye açan projeye ev sahipliği yapıyor.Çavuşoğlu, sergisi kapsamında, farklı hedef ve gereksinimlerle oluşan on beş inisiyatife odaklanıyor. Birçoğu gıda kooperatifi olarak faaliyet gösteren bu inisiyatiflerin hikâyeleri, yine bu inisiyatiflerin yetiştirdikleri ürünlerden elde edilen doğal boyalarla kumaşlar üstünde soyut bir anlatıya dönüşüyor. Farklı tekniklerle elde edilen doğal boyalar ipleri renklendiriyor, dokunan ipler dokumalara dönüşüyor, Türkiye’ye özgü/yerel ve doğal kumaşlar boyanıyor ve ortaya çıkan bütün ürünler bir pazar ortamı hissiyatıyla bir araya geliyorlar.Renkleri genellikle bir hikâye anlatırken aracı olarak kullanan Çavuşoğlu’nun bu çalışmasında, doğal ürünlerden elde edilen renkler, her bir gıda inisiyatifinin yetiştirdiği ürüne referansla, içeriğin kendisine dönüşüyor. Ürünlerden elde edilen boyanın kimi zaman yarattığı zıt renk algısının altını çizen sergi başlığı, son bölümünde Fransız sürrealist şair Paul Éluard’ın “The Earth Is Blue As An Orange” (Dünya mavidir tıpkı bir portakal gibi) şiirine göndermede bulunuyor. Müşterekliğe inanan bu girişimlerden esinlenen sergi, yeni sürdürülebilir modeller ve biraradalıklar geliştirmenin imkânsız olmadığının umudunu taşıyor.

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In her solo exhibition, “Pink as a Cabbage / Green as an Onion / Blue as an Orange”, Aslı Çavuşoğlu presents a narrative based on alternative approaches put forward by sustainable farming initiatives that have emerged recently in reaction to destructive and inefficient practices of industrial agriculture. In exploring the innovations these ecological initiatives have developed in the face of a mounting crisis of production and distribution, Çavuşoğlu asks viewers to rethink possibilities of local production and sustainable consumption. Initially developed for KADIST in Paris following the artist’s residency there last year, the exhibition with new works is now on show at EK BİÇ YE İÇ’s spaces in Gümüşsuyu and Kurtuluş.

Through an installation of natural fabrics and dyes, Çavuşoğlu examines the work of fifteen agricultural initiatives, each formed with different requirements and goals, and many of which operate as food cooperatives. The stories of these initiatives and the new models they propose take shape as abstract narratives on fabric, using natural dyes that were derived from the products they cultivate. Threads colored with dyes obtained from fruits, vegetables and plants, are woven together to form local and natural fabrics. These fabrics are then painted, resulting in an end product that evokes the sentiment of a market environment.

Frequently making use of color as a device and medium for storytelling, Çavuşoğlu here employs color as the content itself, with fabrics that correspond to and reference products grown by each unique initiative. Underlining the often contrasting color perception of dyes obtained from natural products, the last line of the exhibition title refers to the poem “The Earth is Blue As An Orange” by French surrealist poet Paul Éluard.In the spirit of kinship, solidarity and community demonstrated by these initiatives, the exhibition puts forward the conviction that it will be possible to move away from industrial food production and provide sufficient and healthy food through new, innovative and sustainable models.

EK BİÇ YE İÇ
Address: Gümüşsuyu Mah. İnönü Cad. No: 9c Beyoğlu Istanbul
Hours: Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays, 12.00–19.00, or by appointment.

Address: Feriköy Mah. Şeref Meriç Sok. 2/1a Şişli Istanbul
Hours: Monday–Saturday, 11.00–20.00, or by appointment.

Translation from Turkish to English: Ela Perşembe

I Heard It From the Valleys
October 2 – November 5, 2021
Haus N Athen

Haus N is pleased to present the group show I Heard It From the Valleys curated by Eva Vaslamatzi with: Hera Büyüktaşçıyan, Aslι Çavuşoğlu, Anastasia Douka, Marina Papazyan, Evi Souli and VASKOS (Vasilis Noulas and Kostas Tzimoulis).

The show presents a series of new productions linked through techniques, narratives and symbols related to the expansive field of folk art. Artists are confronted with these traces of the recent past, retrieved and transferred through their work in an attempt at connecting or distancing themselves from them. Folk production and forms of knowledge, mainly anonymous, are approached here as a field of inspiration and possibility for understanding forms and behaviors which function individually and independently from grander national narratives. Each work, with references to textiles, ceramics, dance, folk medicine and fairy tales amongst others, is a reminder of different models of life, production and economies linked often with provincial regions, the pre-eminent spaces where folk art flourishes. While also incorporating the notion of the urban landscape as an ongoing province, the exhibition focuses on the constant reliance of humans on their environment and the transfer of these relations into the material world.

Pink as a Cabbage / Green as an Onion / Blue as an Orange

Aslı Çavuşoğlu often uses color as a storytelling device. For Red/Red (2015), she followed the story of an almost extinct pigment made of dried and ground Ararat cochineal, an endangered insect species native to the geography around the border between present day Turkey and Armenia, which remains closed due to political and territorial disputes. For The Place of Stone (2018), she investigated the story of lapis lazuli and introduced fragments of how this deep, celestial blue gemstone has been extracted and exported from Afghan mines for centuries.

In Pink as a Cabbage / Green as an Onion / Blue as an Orange, Çavuşoğlu employs a similar artistic strategy as she dyes natural fabrics with fruits, vegetables, and plants cultivated by the farming initiatives she has been in touch with. Yet, rather than formulating the history of a particular color, here the artist thinks through color bringing together the various stories and models these farming initiatives have offered.

The work takes the form of an installation with eighteen fabrics of different sizes, textures, patterns, and rhythmic surfaces with muted, earthy colors—each corresponding to a unique initiative. The installation favors a flexible structure that adapts to its two host sites, Paris and Istanbul and the display evokes the setting of bazaar-like stalls, forming a temporary gathering with provisional and deployable structures.

A riff on a poem by Surrealist writer Paul Éluard, the last part of the exhibition title suggests that imagination is a critical part of future- building. In a time when the pandemic is making the unfolding crisis of agricultural production and distribution even more visible—with farmers destroying a year’s harvest of vegetables despite an increase in demand for food—, Çavuşoğlu’s work reminds us about the pathologies of the existing, industrial, and heavily marketized food systems. The exhibition positions small-scale farming initiatives not only as sites of everyday resistance, but also as value systems that will play a central role for future politics.

Adapted from Özge Ersoy’s essay for the exhibition’s publication.

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With Just the Push of a Voice
11 July 2020 – October 2021
MASS MoCA

Aslı Çavuşoğlu’s With Just the Push of a Voice takes its title from Gabriel García Márquez’s 1975 novel, The Autumn of the Patriarch. In a passage chronicling the fall of a dictator, the narrator recalls entering the palace, where “We did not have to knock down the door, as we had thought, for the main door seemed to open by itself with just the push of a voice.”

Çavuşoğlu’s works in With Just the Push of a Voice—a coda for Kissing through a Curtain—examine situations where translation becomes necessary between people who supposedly speak the same tongue. Symbols and words are accorded power as indicators of one’s own beliefs or identity, and as agents of revolution. Moments of erasure and censorship are revealed as filled with significance. Perhaps an utterance is even capable of opening the palace doors.

Curated by Alexandra Foradas

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For the final online panel talk in the public program series “Drifting Realities: The Archipelago of Food Discourses,” discussion shall begin by considering the handling and cleaning processes surrounding food and waste. Artist Aslı Çavuşoğlu will draw upon her project “Pink as a Cabbage/Green as an Onion/Blue as an Orange”(2020), which continues the research methods she adopted in “Red/Red” (2015), using archaeological methodology to trace the history of the disappearance of pigments. She dyes natural fibers cultivated by Turkish farming initiatives with fruits, vegetables and plants, integrating the various histories and models provided by the scheme, rather than focusing on the history of specific colors.

The Place of Stone at Palais de Tokyo, Paris.

View from the exhibition Our World is Burning, Palais de Tokyo, Paris. Photo by Aurélien Mole.

John Akomfrah · Mustapha Akrim · Francis Alÿs · Kader Attia · Mounira Al Solh · Bouthayna Al Muftah · Monira Al Qadiri · Sophia Al Maria · Sammy Baloji · Yto Barrada · Aslı Çavuşoğlu · Faraj Daham · Bady Dalloul · Inji Efflatoun · Khalil El Ghrib · Mounir Fatmi · Fabrice Hyber · Dominique Hurth · Amal Kenawy · Amina Menia · Shirin Neshat · Otobong Nkanga · Sara O’Haddou · Michael Rakowitz · Younes Rahmoun · Wael Shawky · Oriol Vilanova · Danh Vo · Raqs Media Collective

Curator: Abdellah Karoum
Co-curator: Fabien Danesi

The exhibition “Our World is Burning” offers a fully political view of international contemporary creation seen from the Gulf, where wars and diplomatic tensions have constantly determined the history of the early 21st century. The title explicitly refers to the human disasters generated by the successive conflicts in this region, while bringing in as broadly as possible the ecological catastrophes embodied by the immensely destructive forest fires from Amazonia to Siberia, without forgetting California. But fire is not just a statement of danger. Ambivalently, it is also a symbol of the formidable democratic élan experienced by this region during the Arab Springs. In this way, the exhibition draws up a fragmentary, sensitive map addressing the numerous societal transformations in the Middle East in the context of global crisis of political debate and environmental fragility.

From the destruction of Iraqi treasures (Michael Rakowitz) to the fate of Syrian refugees (Monira Al Solh) while taking in the financial backing of the Taliban through the exploitation of lapis lazuli (Asli Cavusoglu), “Our World is Burning” presents a complex intermeshing of events, to which the artworks allude while offering multiple poetic perspectives.

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Galeri Nev Istanbul presents Aslı Çavuşoğlu’s Everything Interesting Takes Place in the Dark, an exhibition that launches ANNEX, a font conceived by the artist, and designed by Özer Yalçınkaya. For this debut, ANNEX is deployed through a set of two-toned neon sculptures, which render the font’s style guide one letter at a time within the gallery walls, while a series of publicly displayed exhibition posters take the font to the streets.

On a formal level ANNEX finds its inspiration, and shape from a socio-political phenomenon Çavuşoğlu has been documenting across Istanbul for over a decade. Herein anti-establishment graffiti is quickly redacted through the use of counter-graffiti marks that make the original slogans, such as “the only way is revolution”, or “another world is possible”, illegible by rendering the letters into jumbles of crosses, triangles, circles, squares, and other abstract geometric blocks. In addition to presenting the font’s style guide, which condenses its source material into a codified type, the artist lays bare the very process of these revisions by transcribing each letter of the alphabet respectively into two-toned neon sculptures. In each piece, the primary marks are rendered in a cooler tone, while the overlays are presented in a hotter one. Through this superimposition, audience can differentiate the coded letters hidden beneath their attempted erasure.

The move to situate the font in public space through the show’s advertisements also transforms these posters into ostensible cyphers through which various censored graffiti may be decoded across the city. This form of mimicry borrows from the art and activist collective the Situationist International, particularly their use of détournement —a technique in which advertising language, imagery, and most importantly, it’s distribution methods, are commandeered so as to disrupt, and question intended messaging. From a titular standpoint, ANNEX likewise teases another form of ambiguity as the word can imply a necessary, or even, a welcomed addition to something, but it can also mean an appropriation by force. Sympathetic to all forms of use, the font may be downloaded for free, and utilized by 3rd parties.

ANNEX also calls to mind a philosophical device known as Sous Rature, which is commonly translated as “under erasure”. Typically, a key word, which could change the entire meaning of a sentence, is strategically crossed out so it is both there, and not there, at the same time. This paradox, predicated on a word being both present and absent, provokes the reader to wrestle with the author to establish intention as well as to question the very nature of signification itself.

Returning to the exhibition title, audience are teased with the idea that Istanbul is littered with several armies of the night comprised of hidden authors who write, and rewrite, the city’s political unconscious under the cloak of darkness so that their deeds may be spied in the light of day. As a final conceptual twist, Çavuşoğlu “shadows” this ferment through neon, which is best seen when under shade.

Adam Kleinman

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Translation is an attempt to transport something from one space to another: not just languages, but also times, bodies, minds, mediums, and cultures. Accretions of meaning form as each new context adds the grit of new associations. At a moment when isolationism and xenophobia are on the rise at a global scale, the artists in Kissing Through a Curtain explore what place translation — or, indeed, any attempt to communicate — occupies.

Including works by Nasser Alzayani, Aslı Çavuşoğlu, Kim Faler, Justin Favela, Osman Khan, Kameelah Janan Rasheed, Jimena Sarno, Clarissa Tossin, and Jessica Vaughn & curated by Alexandra Foradas.

Making the Stones Talk, ARTER
21 December 2019
11:00 – 12:30

Photo: Hadiye Cangökçe

In her work titled The Stones Talk (2013-2019), featured in the What Time Is It? exhibition, Aslı Çavuşoğlu duplicated fragments found in archaeological excavations sites in Turkey that were deemed either “insignificant” or “incomplete” by the Ministry of Tourism and Culture and thus classified as “study pieces”; she “completed” these fragments for this installation. In the workshop, the artist uses 3-D printing to multiply the replicas of the study pieces featured in the exhibition, surrendering them to participants’ imaginations. As these fragments are completed with the materials found in the workshop, participants will discuss the meanings we bestow onto objects.

Featured in the inaugural programme of Arter’s new building, the group exhibition entitled What Time Is It? brings together works that invite viewers to contemplate the concepts of time, space, and memory. Exploring the meanings they generate in different contexts and the interaction they establish with one another and with themes such as everyday objects, home, personal and collective histories, inside and outside, urban rhythms, architecture, archaeology, borders and migration, the exhibition includes 44 works by 34 artists.

What Time Is It? is curated by Emre Baykal and Eda Berkmen.

Photo: Hadiye Cangökçe

Podcast: Now You May Cross – Conversation (in Turkish) on The Stones Talk: Aslı Çavuşoğlu and Berat Örnek

The exhibition Aria, fiori, sale. Works from the Collections of the Castello di Rivoli Museum of Contemporary Art proposes a new path through a selection of new acquisitions and important works from the Museum’s collections of artists such as Ettore Spalletti, Jannis Kounellis, Aslı Çavuşoğlu, Fausto Melotti, Gilberto Zorio, Luciano Fabro Marco Bagnoli and Ingela Ihrman.

Aslı Çavuşoğlu (Istanbul, 1982) analyzes the ways in which disciplines such as archeology, ethnography and anthropology tell political and social events, building up arbitrary stories. The collection of partial objects or deemed inappropriate and deliberately excluded from academic approaches, together with the observation of the environment that characterizes specific conflict zones, are among the methods identified by Çavuşoğlu to express a different point of view. Through the recovery of the red pigment extracted from a small insect known as the Armenian cochineal, RED / RED, 2015-2017 (Room 28), examines the political dynamics developed along the natural border between Armenia and Turkey.

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Nancy Atakan · Kader Attia · Handan Börüteçene · Cansu Çakar · Aslı Çavuşoğlu · Mark Dion · Haris Epaminonda · Iman Issa · Laure Prouvost · Pak Sheung Chuen · Dilek Winchester

How do the life histories of people and objects, which are essential to human action, inform each other? Through a selection of fifteen artworks from two private collections, Replica of the Original explores the way “biography” of objects and human stories intertwine one another while continually transformed over time. The exhibition indicates the manifold conventions that occur in the event a collected artwork reenters the public space, where new meanings and interactions form among the other works, the viewers, and the environment.

A series of black and white photographs, Ayastefanos’taki Rus Abidesinin Yıkılışı [The Demolition of the Russian Monument at Ayastefanos] (2011) by Aslı Çavuşoğlu investigates a 1914 film, considered as the beginning of Turkish cinema, supposedly documenting the collapse of a monument erected by the Russians in Istanbul right after the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-78. The artist builds a new narrative of the never-seen-before film by reconstructing the missing moments between the two footages of the structure and its wreck.

Programmed by Amira Akbıyıkoğlu from SALT, Replica of the Original recontextualizes the interlaced historical and urban narratives of works, selected from Tansa Mermerci Ekşioğlu Collection and Ayşe Umur Collection.

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Closing event of SCRIPTED REALITY

23.03.2019, Saturday

Cine Tonalá and Museo Jumex

To mark the end of Scripted Reality: The Life and Art of Television, Museo Jumex presents a one-day conference and events that explore the work of artists in the exhibition. Television and contemporary art have developed in tandem since the mid-20th century as part of our media culture. Through discussion, screenings and activations, these events bring together international voices reflecting on the role TV and the mass-media plays in their practices in order to cross the lines between reality and fiction.

PANEL
Cine Tonalá / 11AM – 3PM
Artists: François Bucher, Asli Çavuşoğlu, Yoshua Okón and Bruce Yonemoto.

Screenings of works from the exhibition, introduced by Curator Kit Hammonds.

GUIDED TOUR
Museo Jumex / 5PM – 6PM
Guided tour of the exhibition with Kit Hammonds, with a live activation Derrick Adams’s work Fabrication Station #5 (2016).

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The Place of Stone at Axel Vervoordt Gallery

The Crime of Adolf Loos

March 16th – May 25th 2019

Kanaal
Stokerijstraat 19
2110 Wijnegem — Belgium+32 (0) 3 355 33 00

Curated by Alistair Hicks. Organised in collaboration with Turkey One Association.

Photo: Tom Bovyn

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Murder in Three Acts at SCRIPTED REALITY: THE LIFE AND ART OF TELEVISION

Museo Jumex

Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra 303
Colonia Granada
11520 Mexico City

15.Nov.2018 – 24.Mar.2019

As a major cultural component of the contemporary period, television plays a definitive role in visual culture, the circulation of news, and the forging of identities off-screen. Installed in Museo Jumex’s 3rd floor gallery and presented in collaboration with Fundación Televisa, Scripted Reality considers the work of artists from the Americas, Europe, Asia and Africa who have engaged with this vital medium. Exploring TV’s rich and varied history through installation, performance, painting and video, the artists of Scripted Reality present television as object, medium and subject.

Curated by Kit Hammodns

Photo: Abigail Enzaldo & Emilio Garcia

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Aslı Çavuşoğlu: The Place of Stone
September 18, 2018–January 13, 2019
Lobby Gallery

The Place of Stone, Aslı Çavuşoğlu’s first US solo museum exhibition, comprises a mural-like grid of fresco panels painted with ultramarine pigments. With this new work, realized for her New Museum presentation, Çavuşoğlu extends her ongoing research into the histories of specific colors, focusing on the origins and history of lapis lazuli, a semiprecious blue stone sourced primarily from Afghan mines. Çavuşoğlu’s use of fresco, a medium that has traditionally incorporated lapis pigment, calls upon traces of this history: to this day, frescos yield information about the trade of lapis lazuli and its symbolism across centuries and cultures. Çavuşoğlu’s exhibition is curated by Natalie Bell, Associate Curator, and will be accompanied by a catalogue featuring contributions by Bell, artist Mariana Castillo Deball, anthropologist Michael Taussig, and independent curator and writer Amy Zion.

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The exhibition shows works in various artistic practices from the past ten years, by artists from several different parts of the world. These artists all address historiography and memorial culture in different ways. The works engage in a dialogue with contemporary social and political events and with the contexts in which the artists operate – from the silence after the dictatorship in Uruguay or the Soviet era in Lithuania, to expressions of power in post-colonial Angola and South Africa. Some of the artists transform and reinterpret traditional memorial forms such as statues and busts to comment, problematize and sometimes undermine the official history. Others create new narratives by questioning previously accepted histories or by highlighting the circumstances that contribute to the formation of collective memories. Some of the works become unofficial memorials for people and events for whom such memorials were previously lacking – memorials that oppose oblivion, repression or active erasure to become new bearers of collective memory. Instead of the commissioned and official monuments and memorials in public space, the museum and the exhibition context become the space in which collective memories are shared.

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Not Equal to and Neither Yes nor No will be exhibited at Galeri Nev, Contemporary Istanbul

September 19-23, 2018

Photos: Barış Özçetin

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Mehtap Baydu, Aslı Çavuşoğlu, Ahmet Doğu İpek, Özlem Günyol & Mustafa Kunt, Pınar Öğrenci, Ahmet Öğüt & Fino Blendax, Cengiz Tekin

Organized by Özlem Günyol & Mustafa Kunt

27 April – 16 June 2018

Opening 26 April, 7 – 9pm

Wednesday – Saturday, 12 – 6pm / Gallery Weekend Berlin 27 – 29 April, 11am – 7pm

Between Bridges, Keithstr. 15, 10787 Berlin

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RED/RED is part of The Middle Earth, an exhibition by Maria Thereza Alves and Jimmie Durham

IAC in Villeurbanne, FR

FROM 02 MARCH TO 27 MAY 2018

In Spring of 2018, the IAC in Villeurbanne will hand the totality of its space over to artists Maria Thereza Alves and Jimmie Durham for their project devoted to the Mediterranean, called The Middle Earth.

This new and original collaboration comes from the artists’ desire to explore together the territory where they live, in a poetic and critical fashion. Divided into specific fields of knowledge, from archeology to biology by way of climatology, The Middle Earth explores a multiplicity of sources.

Playing with universalist models, Alves and Durham’s dialogue hijacks the apparent objectivity of classification in order to deploy an active dialogue between recent artworks and archeological and ethnological objects in each category, with writing that places itself somewhere between the poetic and the scientific.

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Armenian Cochineal I donated to the Forbes Pigment collection at Harvard Straus Center for Conservation and Technical Studies on behalf of Dr. Armen Sahakyan and Mesrop Moshots Institute of Ancient Manuscripts is now part of their An Atlas of Rare & Familiar Colour book! So proud to be the messenger of this incredible colour ♥️

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From 11 October 2017 to 5 March 2018, ‘Being Modern’ reveals a selection of 200 varied works, including paintings by Max Beckmann and Paul Cézanne, sculptures by Alexander Calder and photographs by Walker Evans. From the first major movements of modern art to the latest digital works, through abstract expressionism, minimalism and pop art, all forms of visual art that have marked history over the decades are highlighted in this exhibition. ‘Being Modern’ is a unique opportunity in Paris to discover the collection of MoMA – a global benchmark for modern art.

MANIPULATE THE WORLD at Moderna Museet, Stockholm

21.10 2017 – 21.1 2018

Can a work of art make you question the way you see the world? Can it change your concept of reality? Welcome to a contemporary group exhibition examining what Öyvind Fahlström’s ideas of manipulation and the theatrical might mean today. The exhibition takes over both floors of the museum, with 25 artists responding to these questions with works that react and infringe on the world.

When Öyvind Fahlström developed a series of paintings with movable parts in the 1960s, the intention was not just to mobilise the painting’s narrative, the variable works also expressed an attitude towards society and politics. Fahlström was part of a Zeitgeist that wanted to redress static and authoritarian narratives and make the world a place that can be manipulated by everyone. This exhibition questions the current state of art’s manipulative possibilities – in a time of alternative facts, relative truths and fragmented narratives. Four historical works by Fahlström create the playing field for the exhibition.

Lawrence Abu Hamdan, Rosella Biscotti, Aslı Çavuşoğlu, Juan Castillo, Kajsa Dahlberg, Detanico Lain, Roza el Hassan, Öyvind Fahlström, Goldin+Senneby, Núria Güell, Candice Lin, Jill Magid, Ibrahim Mahama, Nicolas Mangan, Sirous Namazi, Rivane Neuenschwander, Otobong Nkanga, Pratchaya Phinthong, Katarina Pirak Sikku, Natascha Sadr Haghighian, Jonas Staal, Hito Steyerl, Suha Traboulsi in collaboration with Walid Raad, Thu Van Tran, Alexander Vaindorf.

Curator: Fredrik Liew with Goldin+Senneby

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Flâneuses at French Cultural Center Istanbul

İstiklal Cad. No:4, 34435 Beyoğlu/Istanbul

The exhibition, “Flâneuses” brings together five of the artists who have participated in the Turkey Workshop at Paris’ eminent Cité Internationale des Arts Artist Residency Programme. The exhibition, curated by the Director of the Istanbul Biennial Bige Örer, will be open at the French Cultural Centre from September 13 to November 3.

The “Flâneuses” exhibition hosts the artists Aslı Çavuşoğlu, İnci Furni, Güneş Terkol, Yasemin Özcan, and İz Öztat & Zişan, who have worked at the Turkey Workshop in the Cité des Arts over different periods, with works all based on “flânerie”.

The exhibition book, designed by Özge Güven, features Bige Örer’s introduction on the exhibition and Fatih Özgüven’s article on the flânerie experiences of women authors in Turkish, as well as Özge Ejder’s interview with the artists and curator Bige Örer.

* Photo by Serkan Taycan

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298 111 at Muzeum Śląskie

Exhibition in the streets of the city of Katowice

August 4, 2017

The exhibition 298 111 is the pilot project of the OFF Museum program, which will be conducted by the Muzeum Śląskie in collaboration with the OFF Festival between 2018 and 2020 in Katowice.

The frames of 298 111 are blurred, but we can assume that they are synonymous with the administrative borders of the city. It comprises announcements in B2 format distributed throughout the urban landscape. These posters may be a tool for mobilisation or persuasion, though it’s not entirely impossible that we will use them as carriers of abstract, standalone images. But can an image which is viewed in the public sphere remain abstract? Not everyone sees the same things, and a painting need not be a murder mystery.

The exhibition will last as long as possible. Until the material runs out and fades away.

Artists: Hila Amram, Kathrin Böhm, Karolina Brzuzan, Bureau d’Études, Yane Calovski, Aslı Çavuşoğlu, Banu Cennetoğlu feat. Krytyka Polityczna, Center for Tactical Magic, Desire Machine Collective, Shannon Ebner, Annika Eriksson, Paweł Freisler, Futurefarmers, Deniz Gül, Michal Heiman, Institute for New Feeling, Hristina Ivanoska, Łukasz Jastrubczak, Elka Krajewska, Omer Krieger, Susanne Kriemann, Wojciech Kucharczyk, Marget Long, Susan MacWilliam, Martyna Miller, Mikołaj Moskal, Agnieszka Polska, Katarzyna Przezwańska, Bianka Rolando, RSS B0YS, Rafał Milach, Jonas Staal, Ayesha Sultana, Temporary Services / Half Letter Press & Kione Kochi, Andrzej Tobis, Mario García Torres, Unite Against Dividers

Curator: Sebastian Cichocki
Coordinator: Urszula Mikoś
Cooperation: Anna Adamkiewicz, Wojciech Bednarski, Tomasz Buczyński, Monika Czernik-Czublun, Dagmara Stanosz, Agata Stronciwilk

*** Plant liberation is human liberation ***

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Doublethink Double vision at Pera Museum

25 May – 06 August 2017

Thinking has changed radically, but many people don’t appear to have noticed. Our institutions have been stuck on linear Neo-Platonic tracks for 24 centuries. These antiquated processes of deduction have lost their authority. Just like art it has fallen off its pedestal. Legal, educational and constitutional systems rigidly subscribe to these; they are 100% text based.

‘You probably think of Doublethink as a negative concept. We in Russia think of it as just the beginning,’ says Russian artist, Pavel Pepperstein. The exhibition starts with Moscow Conceptualists who were not acknowledged as artists by the state in 1970s and 80s, so had to form a new way of communication and showcases a new balance in thinking between text and image through the work of 34 artists from all around the world.

The exhibition title alludes to George Orwell’s seminal work 1984 and presents a selection that includes Tracey Emin, Marcel Dzama, Anselm Kiefer, Bruce Nauman, Raymond Pettibon, and Thomas Ruff, as well as Turkish artists, tracing the steps of pluralistic thought through works of art.

Curator:
Alistair Hicks

Artists:
Yuri Albert, Nikita Alexeev, Kader Attia, Sarnath Banerjee, Erik Bulatov, Hera Büyüktaşçıyan, Olga Chernysheva, Aslı Çavuşoğlu, Marilá Dardot, Marcel Dzama, Tracey Emin, Merike Estna, Claire Fontaine, Sandra Gamarra, Duan Jianyu, Ali Kazma, William Kentridge, Waqas Khan, Anselm Kiefer, Galim Madanov and Zauresh Terekbay, Marko Mäetamm, Mónica de Miranda, Ciprian Mureşan, Arkady Nasonov, Bruce Nauman, Pavel Pepperstein, Raymond Pettibon, RAQS Media Collective, Thomas Ruff, Nedko Solakov, Erdem Taşdelen, Gavin Turk, Keith Tyson, Yangjiang Group

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In Different Estimations Little Moscow screening at The People’s Summit 2017

Alice Wang, Althea Thauberger, Andrea Bowers, Ashley Hunt, Aslı Çavuşoğlu, Carlos Motta, Chen Chieh-jen, David Hartt, Deborah Stratman, Donna Conlon, Euan Macdonald, Gulnara Kasmalieva and Muratbek Djumaliev, João Onofre, Khvay Samnang, Liz Magic Laser, Nikolaj Bendix Skyum Larsen, Steffani Jemison

Organized by Brooke Kellaway, independent curator

This two-day screening presents a selection of short videos by artists whose work critically explores today’s political climate as social injustices intensify on a national and global level. Running concurrent with the talks and workshops at the People’s Summit, Breakout Sessions: Artist Takes provides a space where the creative expressions of artists intersect with the debates and discourses in this Chicago convening.

Many of the artists’ works in this video program use a variety of narrative forms to deepen awareness and unravel hidden layers of oppressive systems that are currently affecting society. Featuring interviews, performances, protests, journeys, and dystopias, they enhance the visibility of people who face, and resist, threats including global warming, deunionization, and mass incarceration. In other works, artists focus on recontextualizing historical artifacts that impact present-day cultural conversations, raising questions about gender equality, government surveillance, and processing collective trauma. Additionally, several of the artists address the experience of navigating our radically changing reality on a broader level, revealing the underlying anxieties of being a human nowadays, as we increasingly encounter neofascist and neoliberal ideologies.

Employing a wide range of formal and conceptual approaches, the artists’ works on view at the People’s Summit directly and indirectly raise compelling questions about current transformations of global society, offering new perceptual modes to comprehend this ever-complex time.

Videos vary in length; and will be running on a loop during the following times: Saturday, June 10, 12:30 – 7:00pm; Sunday, June 11, 7:00am – 3:00pm.

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191/205 at LAW MATERIAL – CODEX

VERNISSAGE: June 8, 19h with „A Vochel wo red“, a performance by Michael Barthel and Anna Schimkat
Kunstraum D21, Demmeringstraße 21, 04177 Leipzig
EXHIBITION June 9–July 16, 2017
OPENING HOURS: Friday–Sunday 15–19h

What’s the difference between a speed limit sign and a speed bump?

How is law established and manifested in language, signs and objects? How do we relate – and what relates us – to its forms of manifestation, materialization and institutionalization?
The superposition of virtual and physical spaces, progressive economic and political interdependencies and globalization require the reconsidering of traditional forms of legitimation and jurisdictions.
What does it mean if the legal subject is replaced by quasi-objects, algorithms and new technological developments? What impact does this have on our understanding of action and legal capacity?
Questioning the materiality, stability and language of law and its treaties, CODEX brings together international artists whose works address the performativity and formalization of law and legal claims. The accompanying workshop by Elli Kuruş sheds light on alternative forms of legal validity on the basis of blockchain technologies.

ARTISTS

Libia Castro & Ólafur Ólafsson (ES/IS)
Aslı Çavuşoğlu (TR)
Stefan Endewardt (DE)
Laura Horelli (FI/DE)
Helen Knowles (GB)
Amalia Pica (AR/GB)
Maruša Sagadin (AT/SI)
Carey Young (US/UK)

Curated by Lena Brüggemann, Lena von Geyso, and Elisabeth Pichler

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The audio version of Future Tense is part of Every Time A Ear di Soun – a documenta 14 Radio Program

During the timeframe of documenta 14 Future Tense will be broadcasted through nine radio stations from Greece, Colombia, Cameroon, Brazil, US, Lebanon, Indonesia and Germany. Every Time A Ear di Soun will live stream from April 8 to September 17, 2017 daily on FM 90.4 MHz in Kassel and worldwide on the website of documenta 14. In addition documenta 14 Radio Program will broadcast 4 hours daily on 15560 kHz. The first broadcast of Future Tense will be on April 15 at 1pm/13.00 EEST / UTC + 3

April 8 – April 27 // Paranoise Radio (Thessaloniki / Greece) & Cannibal Radio (Athens / Greece)

April 28 – May 17 // Vokaribe Radio 89.6 FM (Barranquillo / Columbia)

May 18 – May 27 // RSI (Radio Sport Info) 92.3 FM (Douala / Cameroon)

May 28 – June 16 // RURUradio (Jakarta / Indonesien)

June 17 – July 8 // SAVVY Funk (Berlin / Germany)

July 9 – July 28 // RADIO MEC (Rio de Janeiro-RJ / Brazil)

July 29 – August 7 // RSI (Radio Sport Info) 92.3 FM (Douala / Cameroon)

August 8 – August 27 // Radio WPFW 89.3 FM (Washington DC, US)

August 28 – September 17 // Radio Beirut (Beirut / Libanon)

Future Tense // Audio, English, 50 min.

Original music by İsmail Genç aka Havantepe /// With voice recordings of Sinan Okan Çavuş, Karoly Aliotti, Selin Murat, Özkan Cangüven and Aslı Çavuşoğlu /// Mixed by İsmail Genç aka Havantepe at Circuit Room, Istanbul

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Khoj International Workshop Goa, March 25 through April 9

The workshop organised by Khoj* and hosted at the premises of Orijit Sen in the Old Pereira House at the island of Corjeum, Goa.

Participating artists include Zarouhie Abdalian (USA), Yang Lu (China), Danushka Marasinghe (Sri Lanka), Rasel Chowdhury (Bangladesh), Farhana Marzia (Bangladesh), Sergiy Petlyuk (Ukraine). The Indian artists are Baptist Coelho, Shailesh BR, Sahil Naik, Katyayini Gargi, Parul Gupta, Minam Apang and Gagan Singh. The working group of artists from Goa includes Karishma D’Souza, Shilpa Mayenkar, Diptej Vernekar and Bhisaji Gadekar. Rosalyn D’Mello will be the critic in residence.

* The idea of Khoj began in 1997 as a gift of possibility given by Robert Loder, founder of the Triangle Arts Trust. At a time when South Asian artists felt isolated and unsupported, Khoj provided the possibility for young practitioners to create an open-ended, experimental space for themselves, on their own terms. Khoj would be a space where they could make art independent of formal, academic and cultural institutions; outside the constraints of the commercial gallery. Khoj began in 1997 as one such Khoj International Workshop, that brought together artists from all over the world, with an emphasis on the Global South.Khoj continues to be a space for Artists run by artists.

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COLORI at Castello di Rivoli and GAM – Torino

March 14–July 23, 2017

Press preview and opening: March 13

Drafted by Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, Marcella Beccaria, Elena Volpato and Elif Kamisli, with advice from Vittorio Gallese and inspired by Michael Taussig and others, this exhibition investigates the use of color in art through the presentation of 400 works by over 125 artists from around the world, dating from the late 17th century up to today.

This exhibition is about colors, pigments, dyes and poisons. Fluorescent colors appear because they have light in them, just like on our screens today. We see more and more RGB colors, and they are saturated and bright, standardized and digital.

Around 1896, Cézanne said in conversation that Tintoretto, “he who had a chromatic range that could rival with rainbows, towards the end of his life liked only black and white… It is because colors are evil, they torture, you understand. To paint a swirling rose of joy, he must have suffered a great deal.”

In 1905, Annie Besant wrote, “to paint in earth’s dull colors the forms clothed in the living light of other worlds is a hard and thankless task; so much the more gratitude is due to those who have attempted it. They needed colored fire, and had only ground earths.”

Shortly thereafter, in 1910, the Futurists stated: “How can we still see a human face as pink while our lives have clearly doubled through nightlife? The face is yellow, it is red, green, blue and violet.”

In fact, “our relation to color is closely formed by our cultural habitat,” Olafur Eliasson reminded us in 2006, adding, “the Inuit, for instance, have one word for red, but 30 for various whites… Imagine if lime by nature had been bright yellow; maybe the now well-known gallery formula would have been based on this color—the yellow cube. Then our history would have been altogether different.”

“Color is like food, a food that feeds the soul,” Eugénie Paultre said a few days ago in early January. “Without this experience our soul would be very poor. I arrange this food in the simplest of ways, using lines. You end up forgetting the lines and you see only color.”

There will be works by artists and others, including: Anonymous Tantra drawings, Carla Accardi, Bas Jan Ader, Etel Adnan, Hilma af Klint, Josef Albers, Giovanni Anselmo, Karel Appel, Arman, John Baldessari, Giacomo Balla, Robert Barry, Claude Bellegarde, Annie Besant (with Charles W. Leadbeater / painted by Lady MacFarlane & Mr Prince & John Varley), Jakayu Biljabu, Irma Blank, Norman Bluhm, Mel Bochner, Alighiero Boetti, Kerstin Brätsch, Alberto Burri, André Cadere, Corrado Cagli, Alexander Calder, Carlo Carrà, Felice Casorati, Enrico Castellani, Aslı Çavuşoğlu, Michel Eugène Chevreul, Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis, Tony Cragg, Carlos Cruz-Diez, Giuliano Dal Molin, Sonia Delaunay, Nicola De Maria, Fortunato Depero, Nicolas de Staël, Piero Dorazio, Olafur Eliasson, Bracha Ettinger, Lara Favaretto, Oskar Wilhelm Fischinger, Dan Flavin, Lucio Fontana, Katharina Fritsch, Vittorio Gallese, Giuseppe Pinot-Gallizio, Theaster Gates, Rupprecht Geiger, Leo Gestel, Piero Gilardi, Liam Gillick, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Gotthard Graubner, Giorgio Griffa, Gruppo MID, Paul Guiragossian, David Hammons, Camille Henrot, Auguste Herbin, Arturo Herrera, Damien Hirst, Channa Horwitz, Johannes Itten, Alexej von Jawlensky, Asger Jorn, Donald Judd, Wassily Kandinsky, Anish Kapoor, Ellsworth Kelly, Paul Klee, Yves Klein, Frantisek Kupka, Wolfgang Laib, Jim Lambie, Basim Magdy, Alberto Magnelli, Estuardo Maldonado, Antonio Mancini, Édouard Manet, Henri Matisse, Gustav Metzger, Piet Mondrian, Maria Morganti, Edvard Munch, Gabriele Münter, Sir Isaac Newton, Mario Nigro, Otobong Nkanga, Kenneth Noland, Hélio Oiticica, Giulio Paolini, Tancredi Parmeggiani, Pino Pascali, Eugénie Paultre, Giuseppe Pellizza da Volpedo, Heather Phillipson, Francis Picabia, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Sigmar Polke, Lea Porsager, Alejandro Puente, Walid Raad & The Atlas Group, Edi Rama, Gerhard Richter, Hans Richter, Gerwald Rockenschaub, Mark Rothko, Thomas Ruff, Friedlieb Ferdinand Runge, Luigi Russolo, Anri Sala, Mario Schifano, Shozo Shimamoto, Ettore Spalletti, Simon Starling, Haim Steinbach, Hito Steyerl, Mika Tajima, Atsuko Tanaka, Cheyney Thompson, Warlimpirrnga Tjapaltjarri, Luis Tomasello, Giulio Turcato, Joseph Mallord William Turner, James Turrell, Viktor Vasarely, Alfredo Volpi, Franz Erhard Walther, Andy Warhol, Liu Wei, Lawrence Weiner, Marianne von Werefkin, Ye Xianyan, Fahrelnissa Zeid, Gilberto Zorio.

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SHORTLIST ANNOUNCED FOR $100,000 FUTURE GENERATION ART PRIZE

PinchukArtCentre announced 21 artists shortlisted for the 4^th edition of the Future Generation Art Prize, established by the Victor Pinchuk Foundation in Kiev, Ukraine in 2009.

Selected from 4,421 entries by artists from 138 countries, they are:

Njideka Akunyili Crosby, 33 (Born: Nigeria 1983, Country of residence, United States)
Iván Argote, 32 (Born: Colombia, 1983. Country of residence: France)
Firelei Báez, 35 (Born: Dominican Republic, 1980. Country of residence: United States)
Dineo Seshee Bopape, 35 (Born: South Africa, 1981. Country of residence South Africa)
Phoebe Boswell, 34 (Born: Kenya, 1982. Country of residence: United Kingdom)
Vivian Caccuri, 30 (Born: Brazil, 1986. Country of residence: Brazil)
Sol Calero, 34 (Born: Venezuela, 1982. Country of residence: Germany)
Asli Çavuşoğlu, 34 (Born: Turkey, 1982. Country of residence Turkey)
Vajiko Chachkhiani, 31 (Born: Georgia, 1985. Country of residence: Germany)
Carla Chaim, 33 (Born: Brazil, 1983. Country of residence: Brazil)
Christian Falsnaes, 35 (Born: Denmark, 1980. Country of residence: Germany)
EJ Hill, 31 (Born: United States, 1985. Country of residence: United States)
Andy Holden, 34 (Born: United Kingdom, 1982. Country of residence: UK)
Li Ran, 30 (Born: China, 1986. Country of residence: China)
Ibrahim Mahama, 29 (Born: Ghana, 1987. Country of residence Ghana)
Rebecca Moss, 25 (Born: United Kingdom, 1991. Country of residence UK)
Sasha Pirogova, 29 (Born: Russia, 1986. Country of residence Russia)
Kameelah Janan Rasheed, 31 (Born: United States, 1985. Country of residence United States)
Martine Syms, 28 (Born: United States, 1988. Country of residence United States)
Kemang Wa Lehulere, 32 (Born: South Africa, 1984. Country of residence South Africa)
Open Group (Yuriy Biley, born 1988; Pavlo Kovach, born 1987; Stanislav Turina, born 1988; Anton Varga, born 1989, Ukraine)

An exhibition of the work of the twenty one shortlisted artists will go on show at the PinchukArtCentre in Kiev on 25 February – 16 April 2017. The winner will be announced at an Award Ceremony in Kiev in March 16. The exhibition will be presented as an official collateral event at the Palazzo Contarini Polignac Venice Biennale opening on Thursday 11 May 2017.

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One diptych from Red / Red series is now part of British Museum collection!

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Vasiyetimdir* is a publication project that aims to explore how art works will subsist over long periods of time. Art works live in artist studios, private collections, museums, storage spaces, or simply in memories. But how far do the artists want to control what happens to their works when they are no longer? How do they want to exert their control? We directed these questions to the artists we are in dialogue with. We are accumulating their answers through m-est.org.

*Vasiyetimdir is a Turkish phrase that can roughly be translated into English as “It is my will that…” The phrase holds a tint of the melodramatic, mixed with a sentimental flair.

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It’s officially fall this week, and we are—a little reluctantly—back to the grind. If you’re already planning your next escape, turn to Issue 5 of Even; we traveled widely to bring you smart writing on art and culture from across the globe. Start with Anna Altman’s essay on a new museum in Palestine, whose vacant galleries say quite a bit. Read about Cape Town, where young artists are tearing down public sculptures, and Venice, where Germans are trying, with mixed results, to think about migration and multiculturalism. We also hear from Asli Cavusoglu, a Turkish artist who found herself on an Italian island in the midst of this summer’s attempted coup.

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Horror Vacui at Rampa

İkâme

Sanatçılar:

Murat Akagündüz • Vahap Avşar • Hera Büyüktaşçıyan • Cansu Çakar • Aslı Çavuşoğlu • Hakan Gürsoytrak • Servet Koçyiğit • Civan Özkanoğlu • Michael Rakowitz • Huo Rf • Pipilotti Rist • Erinç Seymen • Yaşam Şaşmazer • Hasan Özgür Top • Clemens von Wedemeyer • Seçil Yersel

Küratörler:

Nicole Dee O’Rourke, Esra Sarıgedik Öktem

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Two diptychs from Red / Red series is now part of MoMA collection!

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Muthoscapes on the cover of Kunstforum!

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A Few Hours After the Revolution is at Museum für Neue Kunst Freiburg until 09/10/2016.

Photo: Bernhard Strauss

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191/205 at Van Abbemuseum

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191/205 at New Museum Store

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Red/Red at Mathaf

Curated by Laura Barlow

22 MAY – 11 SEPTEMBER

Aslı Çavuşoğlu’s Red / Red (2015) explores the physicality of a colour to tell a story of coexistence and communality. Delicate drawings are made on worn papers and handmade notebooks in two red inks: Armenian red, extracted from the endangered Armenian cochineal insect, and Turkish red, now used in the national flag. As the patterns modernise from floral to geometric shapes, the resilience of each pigment as it transforms over time is also reflected. In the work, the Turkish red holds its colour while the Armenian fades, narrating the changing physical and allegorical links to national culture, identity, and memory.

Çavuşoğlu studied Armenian cochineal, from its earliest extraction in the 7th century BC to its use in manuscripts, or “miniature paintings”, to document Armenian culture and life. The pigment comes from a carminic acid found in the “Ararat” or Armenian cochineal insect living in the roots of the Aeluropus littoralis plant. This plant is indigenous to the Aras (Araks) River valley, which forms the natural border between Turkey and Armenia. On the Turkish side of the river, knowledge of how to produce Armenian cochineal red has been lost since 1915, while on the Armenian side the plant and insect are threatened by extinction due to 20th century industrialisation.

The work explores this pigment’s disappearance, speaking to the political and ecological histories of this region. Red / Red advocates for the protection of the delicate social and organic systems of the Aras valley – human, plant, and animal life – to support a communally protected ecosystem and shared knowledge of production that will preserve the recording of its collective past, present and future existence.

This is the first presentation at Mathaf of Red/Red, following its production for the 14th Istanbul Biennial, SALTWATER: A Theory of Thought Forms, (2015), with support from Qatar Museums.

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Long Ago Person Found at 13th Fellbach Small Sculpture Triennial

Curated by Susanne Gaensheimer & Anna Goetz

From June 11th through October 2nd

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On Exactitude in Science

School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

January 28–March 6, 2016

Guest curated by Dina Deitsch, “On Exactitude in Science” features four artists—Jennifer Bornstein, Aslı Çavuşoğlu, Jumana Manna, and Elizabeth McAlpine—who directly address the materiality of architectural surface to question means of representation. In their, prints, photograms, sculpture, and performances, the artists present direct captures of the myriad of details that coalesce to form a given site. In doing so, they argue for a form of indexical representation that is grounded in material and experience, favoring touch over vision, and the fragment over the completed image.

The title of the exhibition is borrowed from Jorge Luis Borges’ short cartographic parable, “On Exactitude in Science,” in which he describes an empire that maps itself in such detail that it creates a useless document the very size of the kingdom. As the empire recedes, the map frays and becomes the tattered remnants of its existence—the representation outlives the original. Borges’ text takes on a different immediacy in today’s world of image saturation. Through analog techniques, the four artists featured in this exhibition use models of image and object making pulled from historical photography to archaeology. The 1:1 ratio of representation offers us another way to consider the particularities and details of a place and a possible turn to historic techniques to revive lost relationships with the physical space of the present.

♫ hymnos – An ode to a facade

Vocal: Nisa Ari

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12 Eylül darbesinden sonra ortaya çıkan toplumsal hareketler ve popüler kültür ögeleri üzerinden Türkiye’nin yakın geçmişini irdeleyen “Nerden geldik buraya” sergisi 7 Ocak’ta SALT Ulus’ta açılıyor. #salt80ler

An exhibition exploring Turkey’s recent past through social movements and elements of popular culture that emerged after the coup d’état on September 12, 1980, “How did we get here” will open at SALT Ulus on January 7. #salt80s

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Artist-in-residence in Li Galli from November 26th through December 9th, 2015.

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Visiting Artist Lecture: Aslı Çavuşoğlu at Northwestern University

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‘Solar Fantastic’ is an innovative research, exhibition, and publication project that seeks to address the rich and sometimes fantastic historical narratives tying the modernities of Mexico and Turkey. The ancient worship of Sun in both places serves as a bridge for this comparative contemporary study of two very different yet very similar modern projects: post-Revolutionary Mexico and Atatürk’s Turkish Republic. The multidisciplinary project will follow the fictions and non-fictions that form the roots of national identity in each country using ancient, modern, and contemporary art, history, linguistics, archaeology, and anthropology.

The curators Övül Ö. Durmuşoğlu and James Oles have invited an international group of artists, researchers and scholars such as Rossella Biscotti (Brussels), Mariechen Danz (Berlin), Mariana Castillo Deball (Berlin and Mexico City), Aslı Çavuşoğlu (Istanbul), Emre Huner (Istanbul), Pablo Vargas Lugo (Mexico City), Nicholas Mangan (Melbourne), Megan O’Neil (Los Angeles) to contribute to a series of conversations and public programs in Turkey and Mexico in Autumn 2015. Our discussion will move from histories of the Maya and Hittites, to the specific “pulp history” of the lost continent of Mu (supposedly the motherland of humankind), and then turn to broader ideas about the physical and conceptual power of the Sun (heliocentrism) and the role it has played in economics, culture and technology throughout history, from Maya Sun Temples to Sun Language Theory.

Solar Fantastic is realized with the generous support by Jumex Foundation, Turkish Cultural Foundation, Embassy of Turkey in Mexico and Embassy of Mexico in Turkey.

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NERDEN GELDİK BURAYA

SALT BEYOĞLU, SALT GALATA

3 EYLÜL – 29 KASIM 2015

24 Ocak 1980 kararları, ithal ikameci politikalar yerine ihracata dayalı bir ekonomi modelini Türkiye’ye tanıttı. Ekonomik istikrarı sağlamak amacıyla çıkarılan bu kararlar, ülkenin neoliberal politikalara geçişinin de ilk sinyallerini verdi. Kısa bir süre sonra gerçekleşen 12 Eylül askerî darbesi, siyasi muhalefeti kıskacına alırken artan devlet şiddeti insan haklarının tamamen yok sayılmasını beraberinde getirdi. Birkaç değişiklikle günümüzde hâlâ yürürlükte olan 1982 Anayasası, askerî idarenin baskısı altında yapılan referandumla kabul edildi.

Neoliberal politikalar, 1982 Anayasası sonrasında yönetime gelen ilk sivil siyasi parti olan Anavatan Partisi’nin (ANAP) temellerini oluşturdu. Kurulduğu 1983’ten 1991’e kadar tek başına iktidarda kalan ANAP, tüketim odaklı bir toplum anlayışını devreye soktu; gücünü korumakta olan askerî vesayet ise, her türlü muhalif eylem ve politik oluşumun önünde durmaya devam etti. 1980’ler boyunca uyum içerisinde hareket eden bu iktidar odakları, tüketime bağlı refah ve özgürlük ortamı vaat ederken sosyal ve siyasi yaşamda otoriter bir yaklaşım izledi.

Sendikal hak mücadeleleri ve diğer politik örgütlenmeleri durduran askerî darbe ve 1982 Anayasası, 1980’lerin ilk yarısında çeşitli sivil muhalefet ve temsil biçimlerinin ortaya çıkışını engelleyemedi. On yılın sonlarına gelindiğinde, sivil toplum hareketleri gelişerek demokratikleşmede aktif bir rol almaya ve statükoya karşı durmaya başladı. Feministler, çevreciler, eşcinsel hakları aktivistleri, insan hakları savunucuları gibi siyasi temsiliyet olanaklarından yoksun birçok grup alternatif birliktelikler oluşturdu. Bu birliktelikler, demokratik hak ve özgürlük talepleri merkezinde bir politika benimserken yeni toplumsal örgütlenmelerin de önünü açtı.

İstanbul’u merkeze alan Nerden geldik buraya, bu süreci arşiv materyalleri ve dönem sinemasından örneklerle değerlendirir; sergideki sanatçılar Halil Altındere, Serdar Ateşer, Aslı Çavuşoğlu, Barış Doğrusöz, Ayşe Erkmen, Esra Ersen ve Hale Tenger, 1980’lere dair işleriyle politik ve kültürel dinamikleri irdeler. Askerî darbeden sonra ortaya çıkan toplumsal hareketler ve popüler kültür ögelerine odaklanan sergi, Türkiye’nin yakın geçmişiyle bugünü arasındaki ilişkiyi görünür kılmayı amaçlar.

Nerden geldik buraya, SALT’ın üyesi olduğu Avrupa müzeler konfederasyonu L’Internationale‘nin beş yıllık The Uses of Art – the Legacy of 1848 and 1989 [Sanat Kullanımları – 1848 ve 1989’un Mirası] programı kapsamında gerçekleştirilmektedir.

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“The School of Kyiv” – Kyiv Biennial 2015
08.09.2015 – 01.11.2015

The School of Kyiv considers itself as an open societal project, therefore, admission to all its events and venues is free. The six schools integrated in the exhibition space are stages and places for reflection, debate, and work. Their classes bring together artists, intellectuals, activists, and students, who will be able to cooperate with their colleagues and a broad audience. Every school raises issues relevant for Ukrainian and European society, as well as political reactions to current challenges.

The School of Abducted Europe. In different formats, like lectures, seminars, public discussions, and workshops, the School of Abducted Europe envisions and questions how another Europe can exist. Sanja Ivekovic ́ (Croatia), Emily Wardill (United Kingdom), Ivan Krastev (Bulgaria), Shalini Randeria (Austria), Timothy Snyder (USA), and Marci Shore (USA), among others, are contributing to the classes of the School.

The School of the Displaced. Internally displaced persons will gather and share their experiences with artists who have become refugees for political reasons; they will work together with civic initiatives to explore how displacement can be political resistance and self-definition. The musician Rami Essam (Egypt / Sweden), “the voice of Tahrir Square”; Helge Lunde (Norway), the Head of the International Cities of Refuge Network (ICORN); the artists Ahmet Ögüt (Turkey), Milica Tomic ́(Serbia), Marina Naprushkina (Belarus), and Adelita Husni-Bey (Libya / Italy) are just a few of the fellows of the School. The School is co-curated by Marita Muukkonen and Ivor Stodolsky (Perpetuum Mobile, Finland – Germany).

The School of Image and Evidence aims at deconstructing the status of image in current propaganda wars by using film production as an instru- ment for critical analysis of the war in Ukraine. Film directors, media activists, and researchers will work on a series of documentaries in collaboration with Ukrainian and international filmmakers. Among the participants are Serhiy Loznytsya (Ukraine / Germany), Hito Steyerl (Germany), Ruti Sela and Maayan Amir (Israel), Artur Żmijewski (Poland), Haim Sokol (Russia), Nataliya Gumenyuk (Ukraine).

The School of Landscape. Landscape as a key notion of national imaginary and land as a territory of struggles and dreams are at the core of the classes of this school. Artists and geographers, poets and political theorists, historians and economists will explore cultural and political readings of this paradigm. Tetyana Zhurzhenko (Ukraine / Austria), Martin Pollack (Austria), Andreas Siekmann (Germany), Vladislav Shapovalov (Russia), Taus Makhacheva (Russia), Grupo Etcétera (Argentina), Igor and Ivan Bukharov (Hungary) are joining the School together with other local and international participants.

The School of the Lonesome will work around emotional remains of revolutionary euphoria in the loneliness that follows its end. Activists who took part in uprisings on Maidan, Gezi, Tahrir, in Hong Kong, Russia, and Argentina will work on microdramas, poetic actions, and performances imagining a new political subject after its loss. These pieces will be elaborated together with theater performers and the general audience by artists including Zeino Pekünlü (Turkey), Graciela Carnevale (Argentina), Keti Chukhrov (Russia), Tony Chakar (Lebanon), Kwan Sheung Chi (Hong Kong).

The School of Realism. Realism has a long and dominant history in Ukrainian art. Realism is a combat term in contemporary art. The school will be an arena where these different notions of realism will meet in theory and practice. The School of Realism will host classes and pieces by Dmitriy Gutov (Russia), Kazimir Malevich (Serbia), Doug Ashford (USA), Anke Hennig (Germany), John Miller (USA) curating a group of fifteen American artists, and others.

The School of Kyiv will include projects by Anca Benera and Arnold Estefan (Romania), Anna Daucˇ íková (Slovakia), Anna Jermolaewa (Russia / Austria), Antonio Cosentino (Turkey), Aslı Çavuşoğlu (Turkey), Aura Rosenberg (USA), Boris Ondreic ́ka (Slovakia), Denisa Lehocká (Slovakia), Heinz Frank (Austria), Imogen Stidworthy (UK), Ion Grigorescu (Romania), Jirˇ í Kovanda (Czech), Josef Dabernig (Austria), Laure Prouvost (France), Mathieu Kleyebe Abonnenc (France), Mikhail Tolmachev (Russia), Mladen Stilinovic ́ (Croatia), Neïl Beloufa (France), Paweł Althamer (Poland), Ricardo Basbaum (Brazil), Robert Carlton Breer (USA), Till Gathmann (Germany), Wendelien van Oldenborgh (Netherlands), William Kentridge (South Africa), Yves Netzhammer (Switzerland), Zofia Kulik (Poland), …

Ukrainian participants of the School of Kyiv and a complete list of international contributors, as well as the biennial departments in Ukraine and abroad will be announced at a press conference in August.

Concrete at Tophane-i Amire Culture and Arts Centre

Exhibition dates / Sergi tarihleri: 29 August – 26 September 2015 / 29 Ağustos – 26 Eylül 2015

Opening hours / Açılış saatleri: Tuesday – Sunday 10.00-17.00, with special opening hours Thursday 3 until Sunday 6 September, 10.00-19.00 / Salı – Pazar 10:00 – 17:00 (3 – 6 Eylül arası 10:00 – 19:00)

Artists / Sanatçılar: Laurence Aberhart (NZ), Jananne al-Ani (IRQ/UK), Kader Attia (DEU/DZA), Janet Burchill & Jennifer McCamley (AUS), Aslı Çavuşoğlu (TUR), Saskia Doherty (AUS), Cevdet Erek (TUR), Mekhitar Garabedian (BE/SYR), Fabien Giraud & Raphaël Siboni (FRA), Igor Grubic (CRO), Carlos Irijalba (ESP), Nicholas Mangan (AUS), Rä di Martino (ITY), Ricky Maynard (AUS), Callum Morton (AUS), Tom Nicholson (AUS), Jamie North (AUS), Şener Özmen (TUR), Justin Trendall (AUS) and James Tylor (AUS).

Curated by / küratör Geraldine Kirrihi Barlow (AUS)

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Aslı Çavuşoğlu: In Diverse Estimations

Gallery Miroslav Kraljević

June 10 – July 4 2015

Aslı Çavuşoğlu is concerned with how history can be read and questions who, or what processes, enables its writing and toward what end. These investigations, which have been articulated through various media, revisit key moments so as to locate the interwined dance between rupture and continuity as consciousness and its related identities are constructed and reconstructed.

In the exhibition in Miroslav Kraljević Gallery the artist will show four works made in the period 2010 – 2011. The video In Diverse Estimations Little Moscow deals with the participatory democracy experiment that was carried out in the town of Fatsa in Turkey during 8.5 months and was forcefully brought to an end with a military intervention in July 1980. Afterwards, the mere mention of the event was forbidden and the memory of participatory democracy was almost forgotten. Her work A Small Mix-up shows how easy it is to manipulate the memory and relationship with the past through their modification. On the other hand, the work The Destruction of the Russian Monument at Ayestefanos speaks about the ingrained narrative lacking proof – it is widely believed that on the occasion of monuments demolition, the first Turkish film was made; however, the recording has never been found. The act of demolition is documented only in the two preserved photographs (before and after the demolition), and Çavuşoğlu construes that process in her work, filling the archival gaps of her own accord. The work 191/205, similarly to In Diverse Estimations Little Moscow, speaks about an attempt at forced amnesia – the General Directorate of Turkish Radio and Television Corporation’s decision to ban certain words under the excuse that they do not comply with the nature of the Turkish language, and that they are substandard. Among 205 forbidden words, we find: memory, remembrance, nature, movement, revolution, dream, theory, possibility, history, freedom, whole, life etc.

The exhibition is supported by: Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Croatia, City of Zagreb – City Office for Education, culture and sport.

Gallery Miroslav Kraljević is supported by Zaklada Kultura nova.

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Murder in Three Acts at Market Gallery!

March 21 – April 19, 2015

Market Gallery

334 Duke Street, Glasgow G31 1QZ

Market Gallery presents Aslı Çavuşoğlu’s Murder in Three Acts, a scripted crime drama rehearsed, performed, and filmed during Frieze Art Fair 2012 in the framework of Frieze Projects.

The first stage of the work, executed by a professional crew of actors and producers, was structured as a real-time performance, viewable by visitors to the fair. Consisting of three episodes, Murder in Three Acts was filmed as one episode per day. The art-fair booth that served as the set for Murder in Three Acts was separated into two parts: a pseudo art space where the exhibited art works were involved in the crime and an ad-hoc forensics lab where these objects were examined as pieces of evidence.

Utilizing the modus operandi and parlance of television crime dramas, the project compares forensic experts with art professionals, based on their methodologies of extracting the ‘truth’ from physical artifacts. Murder in Three Acts, through the comparison of these two distinct tradecrafts, seeks to underline the construction and legitimization of a story when it is anchored by expertise. The process-based nature of unraveling the work, at Frieze and now at Market Gallery, is a nod to the piecemeal transformation of an object into a readable text in the process of interpretation or analysis.

The exhibition will include the screening of three episodes of Murder in Three Acts, along with behind-the-scenes footage of the process, filmed by Taylan Mutaf. The exhibition is accompanied by a new publication, commissioned by Market Gallery, including a new text by Kate Sutton, and design by Esen Karol.

Aslı Çavuşoğlu’s projects examine the way in which cultural and historical facts are transformed, represented, and interpreted by individuals. Working across various media, Çavuşoğlu often assumes the role of an interpreter, writer or facilitator in her projects in order to highlight the precarious and subjective nature of our shared histories, questioning those who frame these experiences.

Murder in Three acts was commissioned and produced by Frieze Projects in partnership with Delfina Foundation’s artist-in-residency program. The project was produced in association with Manifold Projects.

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SURROUND AUDIENCE: NEW MUSEUM TRIENNIAL 2015

In Diverse Estimations Little Moscow at RISD MUSEUM

Aslı Çavuşoğlu, still frame from In Diverse Estimations Little Moscow, 2011. © Asli Çavuşoğlu. Commissioned by Borusan Aş.

Friday, November 28, 2014 – Sunday, April 26, 2015

Museum of Art Rhode Island School of Design

Curated by A. Will Brown

The film In Diverse Estimations Little Moscow (2011) by Turkish artist Aslı Çavuşoğlu, stages a series of fragmented, forgotten, and at times painfully remembered histories from a violent political suppression in the Turkish town of Fatsa in 1979 and 1980. Çavuşoğlu shot the film in Fatsa, enlisting untrained locals as actors, crew members, and information sources. Their presence adds a layer of naïve enthusiasm and increased intensity to the reenactments, as the actors are confronted with events from what are often their own families’ recent histories.

The film opens as two dogs wander the interior of a dilapidated former factory building, used by the military as an interrogation and torture facility. Çavuşoğlu edits the series of short, disjointed vignettes that follow into a non-linear narrative that is visually and palpably coherent. Capturing the inconsistencies and mythologies that arise in the gaps between personal and collective memory and written history, she achieves a visually de-historicized estimation of the human experience of remembering events and forming memories.

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Cihan Aktaş & Aslı Çavuşoğlu konuşması: Kadın şapka giye ki asıla?

5 Aralık Cuma, 19.30, SALT Galata

Aslı Çavuşoğlu, Moving Museum İstanbul sergisi için ürettiği ‘Kadın Şapka Giye ki Asıla?’ projesinden hareketle yazar Cihan Aktaş’la birlikte 5 Aralık Cuma günü, 19.30’da SALT Galata’da bir konuşma yapacak.

Türkiye’de Cumhuriyet modernleşmesi çerçevesinde kılık-kıyafet değişimini hedefleyen Şapka Giyilmesi Hakkındaki 671 no’lu, 25. 11. 1925 tarihli kanunun uygulanması süreci pek çok itiraza ve ayaklanmaya sahne oldu. Özellikle Rize ve Erzurum gibi şehirlerde batıyla özdeşleştirelen şapkayı takmak istemeyenler itirazlarını dile getirdiler. Dönemin olağanüstü yetkilerle donatılmış adalet merci İstiklal Mahkemeleri kararıyla resmi rakamlara göre yaklaşık 80 kişi şapka karşıtlığı nedeniyle idam edildi. 1925’te Erzurum’da idam edilenler arasında, bohçacı Şalcı Bacı lakaplı bir kadın da vardı. Türkiye’de siyasi nedenlerden ötürü idam cezasına çarptırılan ilk kadın Şalcı Bacı hakkında, idama giderken ‘Kadın şapka giye ki asıla?’ şeklinde isyan ettiği rivayetinden başka fazla bir bilgi bulunmuyor.

Cihan Aktaş ve Aslı Çavuşoğlu, gerçekleştirecekleri konuşmada Şalcı Bacı hakkında bilinenler ve bilinmeyenler üzerinden Erzurum’da 1920’lerde yaşamış bir bohçacı kadın portresi çizmeyi amaçlıyor. Şapka takmadığı halde Şapka Kanunu’na itiraz mahiyetinde değerlendirilen eylemlere katıldığı gerekçesiyle 22 erkekle birlikte idam edilen Şalcı Bacı üzerinden sürdürülecek konuşmalarda Türkiye’de geçmişten bugüne kadın hareketleri, devletin sürdürdüğü toplum mühendisliğinin kadın kimliğine yansımaları ve bugüne etkileri de irdelenecek.

İstanbul doğumlu sanatçı Aslı Çavuşoğlu projelerinde kültürel ve tarihsel bilgilerin dönüşümünü, temsiliyet ilişkilerini ve farklı bireylerin yorumlama yöntemlerini inceliyor. Farklı görsel araçlar kullanan Çavuşoğlu, çoğu zaman yorum ve anlatı arasında arabuluculuk yaparken, ortak tarihlerin istikrarsız ve sübjektif doğasına dikkat çekerek bu farklı deneyimlerin sınırlarını sorguluyor.

1960, Erzincan doğumlu yazar Cihan Aktaş mimarlık eğitimi gördü. Çeşitli araştırma kitapları yanı sıra öykü ve romanlar yazdı. İran sineması üzerine bir kitabı var. İlk kitabı Sömürü Odağında Kadın 1985 yılında yayımlandı. Gazeteci ve okutman olarak çalıştı. Mimarlık yazıları 2015 yılı başında Geriye Kalan Şehir başlığıyla yayınlanacak. Halihazırda “Ferhat, Şirin ve Hüsrev” efsanesini günümüze taşıyan “Şirin’in Kulübesi” romanı üzerinde çalışıyor. Dunyabülteni.net, hayalperdesi.net ve sonpeygamber.info sitelerinde yazıyor. Aktaş, Şalcı Bacı’nın acıklı hikayesiyle 1988’de Tanzimat’tan Günümüze Kılık Kıyafet ve İktidar başlıklı kitabı için Beyazıt Kütüphanesi arşivinde çalışırken karşılaştı.

Konuşma Türkçe olacaktır.

Kadın şapka giye ki asıla? etkinliği SALT Galata tarafından ağırlanmaktadır.

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Proposals on Monumentality

at Green Art Gallery, Dubai, UAE

Aslı Çavuşoğlu, Iman Issa, Christian Jankowski, Amina Menia, Seher Shah and Santiago Sierra

November 2, 2014 – January 4, 2015

In ‘Monumental Seduction’ (1996), Andreas Huyssen suggested that historical, aesthetic and national contexts, along with political and cultural effects, dominate our understanding of the monumental, articulating the issue of the monumental in relation to memory and modernity. Bringing together the works of Aslı Çavuşoğlu, Iman Issa, Christian Jankowski, Amina Menia, Seher Shah and Santiago Sierra, Proposals on Monumentality attempts to twist and open up our perception of monumentality along with complex dynamics of commemoration, space and power. Curated by İpek Ulusoy Akgül, the exhibition poses a set of questions for us to reflect upon: Can monuments go beyond representing the past and evoking collective memory? Is it possible for them to resist absorption into memorial narratives? How can monuments express fragmentation and forgetting?

* Exhibition view of The Demolition of the Russian Monument at Ayestefanos.

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EXCUSE MY DUST
Screenings, presentations, artists’ talks

With artworks and/or presentations by Aslı Çavuşoğlu, Marika Kuźmicz (Arton Foundation), Małgorzata Ludwisiak, Anna Molska, Daniel Muzyczuk, Karol Radziszewski, Janek Simon

October 24 and 26, 2014
Lokal A-I-R Laboratory
Marszałkowska Street 9/15, Warsaw

Curated by Nazlı Gürlek
Collaboration: Marianna Dobkowska

“Excuse My Dust” is a two-day program comprising of screenings, lectures, and discussions with artists and curators from Poland and Turkey who employ historical materials in their practice. The programme problematizes the issue of “display” in the context of contemporary interest in history; on the one hand, showing how artists investigate and expose historical material in their works, and on the other, how curators and institutions work with history. Taking place in a historical, social-realist interior, whose essence is “display,” the event creates a formal framework for the presented works and phenomena.

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The Stones Talk exhibition book has been awarded by AIGA as the best-designed books and book covers of 2013!

You can order your copy from here.

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Murder in Three Acts at PAC!

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The Crime Was Almost Perfect

24 January – 27 April 2014

Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art is proud to announce The Crime Was Almost Perfect – an exhibition that brings together over forty artists who cross the bridges linking art and the aesthetics of crime. The Crime Was Almost Perfect is also the first exhibition to present works in the new exhibition space on the ground floor of the institution.

Participating artists: Saâdane Afif, Kader Attia, Dan Attoe, Dirk Bell, Guillaume Bijl, Bik Van der Pol, Jean-Luc Blanc, Monica Bonvicini, Ulla von Brandenburg, Asli Çavusoglu, Mike Cooter, François Curlet, Brice Dellsperger, Jason Dodge, Claire Fontaine, Gardar Eide Einarsson, Matias Faldbakken, Keith Farquhar, Dora Garcia, Douglas Gordon, Eva Grubinger, Richard Hawkins, Karl Holmqvist, Pierre Huyghe, Joachim Koester, Gabriel Lester, Erik van Lieshout, Jonas Lund, Jill Magid, Teresa Margolles, Fabian Marti, Han van Meegeren, Dawn Mellor, Rupert Norfolk, Raymond Pettibon, Emilie Pitoiset, Olivia Plender, Julien Prévieux, Rodolphe Archibald Reiss, Lili Reynaud-Dewar, Aïda Ruilova, Allen Ruppersberg, Markus Schinwald, Jim Shaw, Noam Toran, Herwig Weiser.

Curated by Cristina Ricupero

View from the Murder in Three Acts performed at Frieze London, 2012.

Photo: Taylan Mutaf

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Who Shall Deliver Us From the Greeks and Romans? at Gallery Mana

03.04 – 10.05.2014

Adrian Paci, Aslı Çavuşoğlu, Özlem Günyol & Mustafa Kunt, Daniel Silver, Francesco Vezzoli, Gregory Crewdson, Jonathan Monk, Lisa Anne Auerbach & Aleksandra Mir, Matthew Monahan, Pedro Reyes, Steven Claydon

curated by C ristiana Perrella

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Trocadero at Nesrin Esirtgen Collection Art Space

A group exhibition curated by Nazlı Gürlek

With works by Ozlem Altin, Tuncay Cavdar, Asli Cavusoglu, Iris Ergul, Leyla Gediz, Deniz Gul, Serhat Kiraz, Ali Miharbi, Iz Oztat, Sun Ra, Lili Reynaud-Dewar, Sarkis, Lawrence Weiner

23.01.2014 – 29.03.2014

Nesrin Esirtgen Collection is pleased to present a group exhibition this winter guest- curated by Nazli Gurlek. The exhibition is titled Trocadero and it brings together historic and newly produced works, as well as archival material that are not part of the collection. Pieces in the exhibition question notions of repetition as creative process, interpretation as content, performance as document, style as concept, intellectual property as common denominator, and viewer as object of interest.

Trocadero finds its inspiration in the context of a variety theater of the same name long gone, in which it is situating itself. The Trocadero Theater opened its doors during the second half of the 19th century, and was located where Misir Apartmani stands now remaining there until 1905, when the Misirli Abbas Halim Pascha bought the land to have a winter residence built for his family. The aim of the exhibition, however, is not to analyze the story of Istanbul’s urban or social development, the touristic associations the name Trocadero offers, or the history of this theatre. The exhibition turns to the myth of this theater 109 years after its demolition in order to try out a new exhibition model: It brings together works at whose center of production lie the notions of repetition, interpretation, and transformation in various forms; it transposes the functioning rhythm of the lost theater into the gallery, aiming to communicate with viewers through the possible moments of déjà-vu, which this rhythm is expected to induce. What happens if, rather than dismantle, destroy or reconstruct, we repeat, add, interpret, transform, and derive historical constructs and creative impulses instead?

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Murder in Three Acts at Delfina Foundation

11/10/13 — 25/10/13

Visitor information
Opening days: 11 — 25 October 2013 (except Sundays)
Opening times: To be confirmed
Entrance: 31 Catherine Place, Victoria, London SW1E 6DY

Delfina Foundation is pleased to present the UK premiere of the final instalment of Asli Çavuşoğlu’s critically acclaimed Murder in Three Acts – a scripted crime drama originally rehearsed, performed, and filmed in real time using a crew of professional actors and producers. Commissioned as part of Frieze Projects 2012 through a residency at Delfina Foundation, this is the first time that all three completed episodes have been shown together in the UK.

In anticipation of the official unveiling of Delfina Foundation’s expansion in January 2014, the screening of the Murder in Three Acts offer visitors a special preview of the partially renovated space on the occasion of this year’s Frieze Art Fair.

Each film follows three detectives on their quest to solve a murder that has taken place in an exhibition space where artworks appear as both clues and weapons. Mimicking the fast paced, slick style of well-known crime dramas such as CSI, the project draws parallels between forensic experts and art professionals, based on their methodologies of extracting the ‘truth’ from physical artefacts. Murder in Three Acts, through the comparison of these two distinct tradecrafts, seeks to underline the construction and legitimisation of a story when it is anchored by expertise.

The three episodes of Murder in Three Acts will be presented alongside a behind-the-scenes documentary filmed by Taylan Mutaf. Additionally, the props from the series return to the exhibition as objects in their own right – highlighting the speculative nature of building a collection – whether of evidence or of art.

The process-based nature of unravelling the work, originally at Frieze and now set against the backdrop of the Delfina Foundation’s unfinished space, is a nod to the piecemeal transformation of an object into a readable text in the process of interpretation or analysis.

Murder in Three Acts is a result of a collaboration between Frieze Foundation, Manifold Projects, Galeri Non and Delfina Foundation’s artist-in-residency programme which provided a six-week residency for Çavuşoğlu in Autumn 2012. The exhibition is presented in partnership with Galeri Non.

Delfina Foundation, currently located in a period townhouse in Victoria, London, will expand into the adjacent building, doubling its residency and exhibition space, to become the largest host of international residencies in London when it reopens in January 2014.

*Photo by Polly Braden

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Suspicous Minds

27.08.2013 – 21.09.2013

Galeria Velhelmo

RUA MINAS GERAIS . 350 . CEP: 01244-010 . SÃO PAULO . SP . BRASIL

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BLUE PERIOD

The World Turned Inside Out

Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art

25 May – 18 August 2013

‘Blue pencils, blue noses, blue movies, laws, blue legs and stockings, the language of birds, bees, and flowers as sung by longshoremen, that lead-like look the skin has when affected by cold, contusion, sickness, fear; the rotten rum or gin they call blue ruin and the blue devils of its delirium; Russian cats and oysters, a withheld or imprisoned breath, the blue they say that diamonds have, deep holes in the ocean and the blazers which English athletes earn that gentlemen may wear; afflictions of the spirit — dumps, mopes, Mondays–all that’s dismal–low-down gloomy music, Nova Scotians, cyanosis, hair rinse, bluing, bleach; the rare blue dahlia like that blue moon shrewd things happen only once in, or the call for trumps in whist (but who remembers whist or what the death of unplayed games is like?), and correspondingly the flag, Blue Peter, which is our signal for getting under way; a swift pitch, Confederate money, the shaded slopes of clouds and mountains, and so the constantly increasing absentness of Heaven, consequently the color of everything that’s empty.’*

A crowned blue gemstone extracted from the sepia-colored Hindu Kush mountains bordering Afghanistan and Pakistan, lapis lazuli used to be the only way to feel the tangibility of the sky, the sea and heaven. Being the first natural blue, it dazzled the deities reining the Ancient Mesopotamian underworld and traveled from beyond the sea to paint the robes of the Madonna. Until the nineteenth century, it has mainly been considered as the color of heavenly blue, hence its historical association with the celestial sphere that marks the sacred boundaries of our universe.

Aslı Çavuşoğlu drifts into its ancient depths, bridging the Asian mountains with Witte de With in search of delirium, absentness, and the intangibility of the sky. At the heart of her project lies lapis lazuli’s transition from sacredness to its stature as a color today.

Aslı Çavuşoğlu, Blue Period is supported by SAHA Association – Supporting Contemporary Art from Turkey

* On Being Blue, William H. Gass

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The unexamined experience is not worth having.

08 June – 13 July 2013

Galerie Fons Welters, Amsterdam

Playstation is proud to invite you to the group exhibition ‘The unexamined experience is not worth having’, which brings together works by Yael Assaf, Asli Çavuşoğlu and Lukas Hoffmann. Departing from Lucy Lippard’s modus operandi in her book ‘On the Beaten Track; Tourism, Art and Place’ (2000), this exhibition moves between the labyrinths of lived experience and personal geography; between grasping reality, mediating memories and the solitary quest for inexpressible meaning.

Photo: Konstantin Guz

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The model of American Bar by Adolf Loos.

Words Dash Against the Facade at MAK Museum on April, 20.

Signs Taken in Wonder

MAK Exhibition hall, Vienna

SIGNS TAKEN IN WONDER surveys the work of 33 international contemporary artists, born between the 1920s and the 1980s, whose art work engages with aspects of the culture, history, and daily life of Istanbul, one of the world’s great metropolises. Istanbul has been fascinating people for centuries—the exhibition carries that fascination into the 21st century.

Curators: Simon Rees, MAK, and Bärbel Vischer, Curator MAK Contemporary Art Collection

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191/205 at HMKV Dortmund 03/23/2013 – 07/07/2013

HIS MASTER’S VOICE: On Voice and Language is an exhibition on the performativity of voice and language, the inauthenticity and uncanniness of speaking, voice as a political speech act, and language as performative utterance. The exhibition will examine the ‘urge to speak in contemporary art’ (Sabine Maria Schmidt). Artists are increasingly interested in speech acts and the corporeality and performativity of the human voice, tackling a broad range of issues from the analysis of the voice as an indicator of presence and identity to examinations of historic and contemporary political rhetoric, including such extreme forms as hate speech.

Curated by Inke Arns

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MURDER IN THREE ACTS

March 1–April 16, 2013

NON presents Asli Çavuşoğlu’s Murder in Three Acts, a scripted crime drama rehearsed, performed, and filmed during Frieze Art Fair 2012 in the framework of Frieze Projects.

The first stage of the work, executed by a professional crew of actors and producers, was structured as a real-time performance, viewable by visitors to the fair. Consisting of three episodes, Murder in Three Acts was filmed as one episode per day. The art-fair booth that served as the set for Murder in Three Acts was separated into two parts: a pseudo art space where the exhibited art works were involved in the crime and an ad-hoc forensics lab where these objects were examined as pieces of evidence.

Utilizing the modus operandi and parlance of television crime dramas, the project compares forensic experts with art professionals, based on their methodologies of extracting the ‘truth’ from physical artifacts. Murder in Three Acts, through the comparison of these two distinct tradecrafts, seeks to underline the construction and legitimization of a story when it is anchored by expertise. The process-based nature of unraveling the work, at Frieze and now at NON, is a nod to the piecemeal transformation of an object into a readable text in the process of interpretation or analysis.

The exhibition will include the screening of three episodes of Murder in Three Acts, along with behind-the-scenes footage of the process, filmed by Taylan Mutaf. Additionally, the props in the series return in the exhibition as objects in their own right. Seen together, they form a collection that hints at the proliferation of stories that arise from their juxtaposition, underlining the speculative nature of building a collection—whether of evidence or art.

Aslı Çavuşoğlu and Gallery NON would like to thank to Merve Ünsal, HG Masters and İlkay Baliç.

Photo: Taylan Mutaf

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Mercury in Retrograde

The Contemporary Art Series of artists books, initiated by Art-ist publications, presents unique monographs of work by emerging artists who do not have a publication on their work yet. The series aims at documenting practices as they manifest and creating a space for evaluating each artist’s practice through most of their works. The books published to date are Ahmet Öğüt: Informal Incidents (2008), followed by Bashir Borlakov: Fictional Reality (2009), Can Altay: Pigeons are People (2010) and A Şener Özmen Book (2011). Mercury in Retrograde is the fifth book in the series, which focuses on Aslı Çavuşoğlu’s artistic production since 2004.

Flexi, Offset Paper
96 Pages, 40 Illustrations
Art-ist
September 2012

More info here.

* Photo: Dinçer Şirin

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191/205 is at Material Information curated by Juan A. Gaitan.

Art Museums of Bergen Permanenten from September 28th and January 31st 2013.

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Read here.

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listen here.

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191/205 at Gelbe Musik, Berlin!

Schaperstraße 11 10719 Berlin
Tel. 030-211 39 62
E-Mail gelbe.musikberlin.de

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Steam Society presented in September, 2011!

Conceived and hosted by Defne Ayas and Aslı Çavuşoğlu, Steam Society is a banquette of all sorts at the Historical Galatasaray Hammam (b.1481), offering a purification hub to all Biennial guests with the participation of Ayla Algan, Julieta Aranda, Özgür Erkök, Juan Gaitan, Adam Kleinman, Darius Mikšys, Francesco Pedraglio, Güneş Terkol, Elif Uras, Bedwyr Williams, Pınar Yolaçan and many other exceptional guests.

Drawing by Özgür Erkök