ART CITIES:Istanbul-Burçak Bingöl & Sevinç Çalhanoğlu
Two contemporary Turkish Artists, present solo exhibitions at the spaces of Zilberman Gallery in Istanbul, Both bodies of work have as stepping stone writings. Burçak Bingöl’s work follows the work of Ekrem Işın, one of the best cultural historians of Turkey while the work of Sevinç Çalhanoğlu work is based in a book by the poet Nilgün Marmara.
By Efi Michalarou
Photo: Zilberman Gallery Archive
Burçak Bingöl’s new solo exhibition title “Mythos and Utopia” is derived from the description of Istanbul in Ekrem Işın’s book titled “Daily Life in Istanbul”. Following her exhibitions “Cabinet of Curiosities” (2011) and “A Carriage Affair” (2014), this is the last chapter in the exhibition series that the artist has realized with Zilberman Gallery. In this chapter she looks back at the city’s history as well as that of ceramic materials and blends memory and material to construct a new scenery. The exhibition deconstructs the existing relationships and associations built around the city and the materials. It creates an experimental scenery in which decorative fragments, objects and time overlap and become interlaced. Through repetition and time, image and object begin to reflect one another. While a site-specific clay application from an İznik tile panel from the Topkapi Palace comes apart and is resurrected on the walls of the gallery, traditional ceramic forms suggest and adopt new forms –and non-forms– to create a unique diorama. Sevinç Çalhanoğlu in her solo exhibition “The Myth of the Death Dance Illuminates the Questions”, takes as her subject the book of the poet Nilgün Marmara (13/2/58-13/10/87), “The Poems Typed” within the framework of the poet’s suicide. The artist uses Marmara’s method in her thesis “The Analysis of Sylvia Plath’s Poetry in the Framework of Her Suicide”, re-typing the sentences that have connotations of suicide in her poetry, tracing the path of death. By extracting words that she sees as clues from the text, she tries to approach the poet and her work through different constructionns. This attempt to “weed out” evokes tension while bringing about new interpretations. The notebook that is at the center of the exhibition features words and resistance rods that have been stored away in plastic bags research the possibilities of stopping/inclusion. The colors that we encounter in the notebook and on the walls carry to different surfaces the colors that the poet used in her poems, trying to make tangible her relationship with nature, symbols, and the universe of text that she constructs with symbols. Marmara’s difficult-to-understand, alienating language evolves into a familiar situation through Çalhanoğlu’s writing-reading experience, acquiring layers.
Info: Zilberman Gallery & Zilberman -Project Space, İstiklal Cad. No.163, Mısır Apartmanı K.3, D.10 Beyoğlu, Istanbul, Duration: 28/2-22/4/17, Days & Hours: Tue-Fri10:00-19:30, Sat 12:00-19:00, www.zilbermangallery.com
