ART CITIES: Istanbul-Rising Waters, Radiating Lights

Sea levels are rising at an accelerating rate. Oceans are expanding as they absorb massive amounts of heat, while glaciers and ice sheets contribute hundreds of gigatons of meltwater to the seas each year. Coastal land is also shifting, affecting local sea level changes. These seemingly small increases are already causing significant problems along coastlines worldwide.

By Efi Michalarou
Photo: Zilberman Gallery Archive

The sea and the sun have long been central to legends and fairy tales, symbols of leisure and splendor, and subjects of fascination for alchemists, theologians, and scientists across cultures. As our world undergoes dramatic changes, how does our perception of these elements evolve? Should we view them increasingly as threats rather than sources of life? And what are our personal strategies—both practical and poetic—for the warmer, wetter future that awaits us? The exhibition “Rising waters, radiating lights” that spans the 3 spaces of Zilberman Gallery in Istanbul brings together diverse perspectives on our complex relationship with the ever-changing nature of our world and the places we inhabit, merging past, present, and future, as well as reality and imagination. Omar Barquet’s works predominantly refers to space, time, landscape, sound, nature and memory investigating emotional and internal human chaos within. The particularity of his work stems from his ability to understand the nature of space in a technical, analytical way which relates movement and repetition, visibility and invisibility. Barquet modifies his source of inspirations in his words “in a way of ‘collage’ for the purpose of giving the projects a synthetic language” thereby bringing an interdisciplinary aspect to it, using a “symphony” as a system to organize all his projects and collaborations. Sena Başöz is an artist working across many different media whose works investigate healing, seeking ways of interacting with what is considered out of reach and experimentally regenerating what is considered frozen-dead-stale-lost. She focuses on broader definitions of “care” and the practices it entails. Itamar Gov is an interdisciplinary artist whose practice consists of sculptural and spatial installations, as well as graphic and video works. Addressing the intricate relations between history, ideology and aesthetics, his projects explore various forms of personal, collective and institutional memory. Since 2010 he has been living in Berlin, Paris and Bologna, where he studied cinema, history and literature. Product of his fascination with nature, Larry Muñoz is drawn to details, little elements, and gestures. His work deals with the fragility and complexity of our relation with nature. From particular to universal, he manifests his practice through sculptures, videos, and installations that offer an encounter with organic and industrial materials from different kinds of origins and situations. In her collective and individual artistic practice spanning diverse media defined by her research, İz Öztat explores the persistence of violent histories through forms, materials, space and language. She responds to absences in official historiography through spectral, intergenerational and speculative fictions. İz Öztat fabricates the (auto)biography of Zişan (1894-1970), who appears to her as a historical figure, a ghost, and an alter ego. She takes on Zişan’s archives and interprets them through her practice to construct a complex temporality of action that enables the suppressed past to intervene in the increasingly authoritarian present. The values and methodologies driving her practice have been articulated in relation to struggles against the taming of running waters and have been informed by consensual negotiation of power dynamics. Yaşam Şaşmazer completed her undergraduate and graduate studies at the Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University, Department of Sculpture. Heavily invested in the conflicts arising between “I” and “the other” during the early periods of her artistic career, Şaşmazer’s recent works continue to explore these polarities in the light of the reciprocal relationships that are shaped between human beings, non-human entities and nature. The artist’s works comprise sculptures and installations that are predominantly produced with natural materials such as wood, clay, paper and papier-mâché, including also organic and found materials as mushrooms, seaweeds, lichens, earth, rocks, tree branches and roots. Şaşmazer’s figurative sculptures focus on the human body. While some of them feature recognizable faces and bodily forms, others depict anonymous, amorphous and at times amputated human bodies or body parts. These body parts which undertake both human and non-human characteristics underscore the ambiguity and permeability of boundaries through the use of organic materials. Şaşmazer’s works are fueled with ephemeral processes that are subjected to time. Through bodies that enmesh and transform, the artist incorporates elemental dualities (human/non-human, animate/inanimate, organic/inorganic) in her work all the while reflecting on notions such as existence/absence and vitality/mortality through spiritual and physical transformations, creating narratives that renegotiate the central position humans cast themselves in. Eşref Yıldırım is inspirated by media representations that suggest a critique of power structures and social taboos shaping society. He focuses on the lives of individuals who are often suffocated by the pressures of social hierarchies, prescribed gender roles, and racism. His continuous dialogue with painting and his choice of recycled materials become an inherent part of his attitude towards his art practice.

Participating Artists: Nezir Akkul, Omar Barquet, Sena Başöz, Itamar Gov, Larry Muñoz, İz Öztat, Yaşam Şaşmazer, Hale Tenger, Eşref Yıldırım

Photo: İz Öztat, Constituting an Island, HD video, 1’46’’, endless loop, 2014, © İz Öztat, Courtesy the artist and Zilberman Gallery

Info: Curators: Gizem Demirçelik & Nazlı Yayla, Zilberman İstanbul, İstiklal Cad. No.163 Mısır Apartmanı K.3 D.10 & Zilberman Dialogues, İstiklal Cad. No.163 Mısır Apartmanı K.2 D.5 & Zilberman-Selected İstanbul, İstiklal Mah. Piyalepaşa Bulvarı No: 32C, Beyoğlu / Istanbul, Turkey, Duration: 19/9-7/12/2024, Days & Hours: Tue-Sat 11:00-19:00, www.zilbermangallery.com/