ART CITIES:Berlin-The Red Gaze
The group exhibition “The Red Gaze” combines two works of classical modernity: a self-portrait of the composer Arnold Schoenberg from 1944 and a poem by Pablo Picasso written in 1935, with a 17th Century baroque sculpture of an accidentally damaged Cristo vivo, and works of artists from Damascus, Diyarbakır, Istanbul, Lahore, Vienna, and Berlin.
By Efi Michalarou
Photo: Zilberman Gallery Archive
The exhibition “The Red Gaze” transforms the format of the Gallery into a public, Museum-type art space in which the artworks are presented alongside musical performances, poetry, and theoretical discussions. The exhibition “resents a constellation of objects (paintings, drawings, poems, sculptures, videos, soundtracks, performances and discussions) in four chapters, on the theme of the “Artist as eye-witness” in times of duress and war. Arnold Schoenberg’s self-portrait “The Gaze” (1944) reflects the disasters of our time, the artist acting as eye-witness to ruins of history beyond repair. The rarely performed poem by Pablo Picasso “The rats may feast where they want”, in his characteristic rhyme, is presented in the gallery’s rooms in the curator’s handwriting. A wave of demonstrations and civil unrest in Turkey began on 28/5/13, initially to contest the urban development plan for Istanbul’s Taksim Gezi Park. The initial cause of the protests was the plan to remove Gezi Park, one of the few remaining green spaces in the center of the European side of Istanbul. On 17/6/13, for more than six hours, Erdem Gunduz stood motionless in Taksim Square, passively ignoring any prodding or harassment from police and people passing by. His unusual form of protest has inspired activists in Turkey and around the world to assume the same pose. He’s even become his own meme, as “duran adam” (standing man). The exhibition associates the bodily gesture of the standing man of Gezi with the series “Composed” by Ahmet Elhan who superimposes nude self-portraits on 18th Century gravures depicting Ottoman interiors. These works are presented in close vicinity to a 17th century Flemish Cristo vivo, who happens to have lost both arms and feet in an unknown accident, now assuming the vertical posture of a Giacometti figure. Other works of the exhibition are: seven icons of Raue, Sarkis, two new works from the “Metropolitan archive” series of Rebecca Raue and a video by Turkish artist Erkan Özgen featuring a deaf-mute 13 year-old boy from a refugee camp in Diyarbakır miming the violence he witnessed in Syria.Participating Artists: Ahmet Elhan, Aisha Khalid, Ali Kaaf, Arnold Schoenberg (drawing), Erdem Gündüz, Erkan Özgen, Eşref Yıldırım, Imran Qureshi, Memed Erdener a.k.a. Extramücadele, Navid Kermani (text), Pablo Picasso (poem), Rebecca Raue, Sarkis and Şükran Moral.
Info: Curator: A.S. Bruckstein Çoruh, Zilberman Gallery-Berlin, Goethestraße 82, Berlin, Duration: 8/10-23/12/16, Days & Hours: Tue-Sat 11:00-19:00, www.zilbermangallery.com
