0 - Now: Traversing West Asia

Hassan Khan, SALT Beyoğlu

Banque Bannister (2010), Hassan Khan, SALT Beyoğlu 2012

Hassan Khan draws out the subliminal in objects and circumstances that exist in social and historical environments. His works produce a tension between the nature of these objects and their changing contexts. Some of these objects stem from Khan’s personal biography, while others derive from figures and images of lingering artifacts that allude to specific civilizations and subcultures. This results in an artistic practice that is responsive to the monumental products of human development, collective moments and the immaterial charge of the objects and gestures that lie between. 

In his work Lust (2008) Khan uses a cell phone camera. This particular medium allows Khan to directly engage with, and record moments that capture people and objects with the immediacy of their existence in the world surrounding him. Through the accumulation of these rapidly-captured images, a meta-narrative proposes different collective perspectives on the subjects gathered and yet each image also maintains its autonomous contribution to a narrative in history. This method of employing a chain of circumstances can be seen in Muslimgauze R.I.P (2010) where a series of tracking shots are edited together to produce real time continuity. This effect suspends a contained period of 8 minutes and 7 seconds, following a boy’s unremarkable activities in an apartment living room and investing it with significance that is almost historical. Similarly, the logic that drives The Hidden Location (2004) lies in the leap from one section of a four-channel video to another. Gaps are formed within these leaps and this is where the “hidden location” lies. The gap contains the moment where all the latent possibilities, that can support each narrative, lay dormant. One’s encounter with this compendium of observations and various narratives opens up the possibility for reinterpreting and reconstructing the details within. 

The Hidden Location (2004), Hassan Khan, SALT Beyoğlu 2012

A work such as Banque Bannister (2010) is composed from focusing in on one of these details taken from daily life. In this instance it is an exact copy of the bannister erected at the entrance of Banque Misr in Cairo. Yet Khan’s version is unrestrained by the original’s context and becomes its irrational replica. Once a gleaming introduction to the bank’s wealth and power that has slowly become weathered by the influence of the elements, Banque Bannister exists perpetually in this perfected form. It also defies structural logic, floating independently, refusing to acknowledge the laws of gravity. Khan further explores these ideas in The Twist (2012), where the precise and discrete beginning and end of a twist he had noticed in a railing is produced as a sculpture. For Khan, the nonfunctional twist in the railing, an ornamentation for its own sake that can be read as a symbol of property, wealth, knowledge and aesthetic judgment, in essence stands for the refinement of societies and cultures. These ideas were first considered in Khan’s and Amr Hosny’s work Lungfan (1995). Both artists worked together under the influence of an “almost telepathic” friendship and engagement with the world around them in the mid-1990s and with a keen understanding of contemporary society’s origins in ancient power structures. In the video aspects of civilization are documented in a spontaneous yet intuitive manner through still images and sound. Although produced seventeen years ago, Lungfan encapsulates many recurring interests for Khan, including the attempt to condense personas, objects and actions into a basic highly charged condition. 

The Twist (2012), Hassan Khan, SALT Beyoğlu 2012

Jewel (2010) opens with an evolutionary throwback to a monstrous deep-sea fish that inhabits a dark world until it suddenly fossilizes into a contemporary object. The video references a culture and its music that can be imagined as exotic, but the two men who dance in casual clothing and without apprehension, alter this response. Their activity appears at first distant and absurd, but as we bear witness to their suspended moment in time, we are also gradually embraced by the dance-inducing rhythm. Another rhythmic work, DOM-TAK-TAK-DOM-TAK (2005) is the transformation and extension of one audio detail into a large musical production, resulting in a new form of this popular music genre. Khan first restructured and recorded with percussionists a series of generic Shaabi rhythms, he then hired session musicians to improvise over the beats without listening to one another. Finally he mixed these separate interpretations to produce six hybrid musical scores. On entering the installation the visitor encounters an emotionally complex unraveling of musical styles in tension with the automated structure of the composition process and its transmission via a mechanical and cold assemblage of equipment. 

DOM-TAK-TAK-DOM-TAK (2005), Hassan Khan, SALT Beyoğlu 2012

DOM-TAK-TAK-DOM-TAK transforms human creativity and communication into a technical rather than personalized process. A similar approach was utilized in 17 and in AUC (2003), in which a constrained environment was created so that Khan could focus on and remember details of his undergraduate years spent at the American University in Cairo. Throughout this process, Khan sat in a sound-proofed one way mirrored room, whereby the external viewers could look straight into his eyes, yet he could not look back or even be sure that he was the subject of anyone’s gaze. the dead dog speaks (2010) functions in much the same way, but takes language as its basis. Distinct voices constitute the work and make visible the preliminary moment where the voice animates the character. From there, the work attempts to strip down the dynamics of language into basic relationships between the personas, which in this case revolve around a computer generated Egyptian film icon, woman and dog. Different voices speak through each persona and bring them to life. Likewise in stuffedpigfollies (2007), six inkjet prints present illustrated pigs, yet human characteristics are imitated via their gestures and expressions. The pigs are used as a trope for Khan’s consciousness and aim to portray some of the logic of his dreams. Merging the living with the nonliving and presenting the space of imagination and dreams, Khan uses these illustrated pigs as a reflection of different roles and inner mental awareness. 

Installation view (that includes stuffedpigfollies), Hassan Khan, SALT Beyoğlu 2012

The logic of dreams also inspires diagrams no 1-6 (2007) and The Alphabet Book (2006). In diagrams no 1-6 Khan turns every dream into a formula that is used to produce a structured diagram. While in The Alphabet Book, images are mined from his periods of sleep to create a narrative connected to the letters of the alphabet. This process of drawing on imagery from a subconscious experience of the world is comparable to the way the objects in The Agreement (2011) have been sourced from fictional narratives based in the social context of contemporary Cairo, while Photographs of statues owned by the artist (2010) delves into personal and cultural historical narratives that are in constant tension with what it is they represent. This opens questions on the nature of these objects, their appeal and connection to a wider history that is both about the artist’s personal biography and that of a collective memory. 

The Alphabet Book (2006), Hassan Khan, SALT Beyoğlu 2012

Khan’s works function as individual projects; yet, they connect to one another, building a network of relationships and cross-references that unravel during the course of experiencing the exhibition. While engaging with objects and subjects that appear familiar, Khan sets them in dialogue with references to very personal and intimate sources that he often chooses not to disclose. He relies on detailed observations of humanity and interactions with the highly enigmatic gestures of individual consciousness, and the works he produces are very formally articulated –an investment in a language that he sees as essential to the very understanding of art practice. These alternating proximities, to the personal and the formal, shift and reformulate, often causing moments of tension when attempting to grasp Khan’s meaning, yet an open encounter is always available for the viewer. The selected works in this exhibition exemplify Khan’s methods of presenting such paradoxes, which lie within societies and the cultures they produce, implicating himself, and us, within a multitude of scenarios and historical remnants.

Written with Fawz Kabra and Hassan Khan for the exhibition Hassan Khan at SALT Beyoğlu;  September 21, 2011 - January 6, 2013.
All photographs by Serkan Taycan. 

Sislej Xhafa

The key is a symbol of trust as well as entry, and Sislej Xhafa’s first solo exhibition in Istanbul offers the possibility for viewers to own a new key—and perhaps a nocturnal adventure. Xhafa’s installation contains only a chair, a table, and a key duplicating machine along with the man who runs it. The rest of the gallery is empty, and all security equipment has been removed. For a minimal sum of twenty Turkish liras, a key from the cutter’s growing pile can be purchased, and with it comes the opportunity to access gallery NON at any time, day or night. NON Unplugged 2012 is a re-siting of Xhafa’s 2006 exhibition at Frankfurt’s Galerie Michael Neff. While that show occurred in a ground-floor space with a window and entry to the street, in Istanbul Xhafa’s intervention is located on the fourth floor of a private building. Hence, the team at NON and those who choose to use the key are dealing with a much more complex chain of trust relationships where exploits remain hidden until the morning after. In the first few days after the opening, a tube of mascara, installations made with orange tape, and empty beer bottles were found in the space. Next, a form of institutionalization reared its head, replacing spontaneity with rumors of structured happenings on the way: a birthday party, an exhibition of cat paintings. Xhafa’s interventions often explore current cultural paradigms and economic fluctuations by encouraging audiences to express their own desires within his work. Today, a thriving economy and a strong art scene are raging in Istanbul. Xhafa’s work plugs into this local hedonistic vibe but also reaches out to a wider public, inviting them to do with the gallery as they please, in the entertainment hub of the city.

Nevin Aladağ

The latest in Arter’s new commissioned series of solo exhibitions is Nevin Aladağ’s “Stage,” six installations, made of brightly colored artificial hair, that mimic the look of stage curtains. The works frame the walls of the space and offer multiple outlets—a crimson, fringed opera-style drape; maroon pigtails reminiscent of an amateur theater prop; and an azure blue clownish bob—to provide for a variety of potential performances and audiences. References to women’s hair coverings, cloths, or wigs are often a clichéd and complex topic in Turkey. But Aladağ sidesteps this debate by composing an eccentric and playful scene, where fake tresses (usually a substitute material for real hair) replace the fabric that both conceals and also opens upon dramatic performance. Concurrently, Aladağ is also exhibiting her work at Rampa. Here photographs, sculptures, and a video make evident Aladağ’s interest in performance as a structuring device for her output. Her physical works are not simply traces of performance, but interventions that result from or encourage action. A new piece produced for this show, Leaning Wall, 2012, is again an installation of colorful elements. Eighty-four ceramic body imprints in seven different pastel hues are hung across one length of the gallery and recall the holds of a climbing wall. Yet visitors are not invited to climb it; instead the more leisurely and sophisticated act of “leaning” is encouraged. Comical as it is to lean one’s face or shoulder into an imprint, there is more at issue here: With this work—as with the hair in “Stage”—Aladağ cleverly recomposes an existing bodily extension, in form and function, to draw the viewer into a curious play that is too enticing to refuse to be a part of.

Vahap Avşar

Vahap Avşar's isn't the classic story of an artist travelling abroad to study or to spend time on a residency program only then deciding to plant roots and stay away. Nor is his relocation simply the result of a foreign love affair; a desperate need to escape and be somewhere else; or a specific desire to experience a major art scene to find that this new context is more supportive for artistic development. Of course, at some point, all these stories played a role in Avşar's decision to leave Turkey and to move to the U.S. in 1995, where until the last few years he lived continuously except for one single return to Istanbul in 1997 to participate in the 5th International Istanbul Biennial. After this trip the Turkish government suspended Avşar's passport and added his name to the list of those being chased for avoiding compulsory military service, meaning that it was impossible for him to return again without confronting this legal requirement. Yet, despite even this last very specific constraint on his personal trajectory the more concrete reason for his long years abroad and seeming abandonment of his home country and also of art is that Avşar found another niche for himself: in 1997 along with Lexy Funk (who he later married) he began to design apparel and they together launched the extremely successful American clothing store Brooklyn Industries. This dynamic shift from a burgeoning art career to the creation and ownership of a company that opened stores in the US, Japan, and Europe, is one that makes his recent reborn love-affair and return to Turkey, and to art, all the more prominent and intriguing.

Aside from a scattering of exhibitions during the ten years he lived in New York Avşar mainly focused on the growth of his company Brooklyn Industries. But in 2007 the fact that he could not return to Turkey for a presentation of his video “Growing Watermelons in Gordion” at Karşı Sanat Galerisi in Istanbul irked him and he arranged to undertake a month's military service in January 2010. On completion, this would not only allow him to freely return to Turkey but it would once again give him the opportunity to consume firsthand the inspiration of a country that his art had always fed on. If we jump to the present, having now completed his military service, we find Avşar dividing his time between Turkey and the U.S. In 2010 his return to art and his relationship with Istanbul's art scene blossomed. He completed a residency at Platform Garanti Contemporary Art Center, had work included in exhibitions at Depo and Arter, and began working with the commercial gallery Rampa who hosted his first one-person exhibition the same year. His sudden return to his home country and to art after so many years cheered former friends and colleagues and he was warmly welcomed back into an art scene that was experiencing a rapidly growing list of exhibition spaces, artists and collectors. Avşar's timing was pertinent, almost calculated, but most off all inspiring in its exposition of how with drive and ideas it is possible to return to a former discipline and talent so auspiciously.

If we look back to 1992 Avşar's departure from Turkey does indeed begin with a residency:

Vahap Avşar: … the break/fissure in 1992 was the international studio program Ateliers Arnhem. There I had the opportunity to meet many international artists and talk to them about my work. Following an exhibition invite from W139’s director Dominique Pelletier during one of the studio visits, my exhibitions at artists’ initiatives in the Netherlands were instigated....this period was an adventure in personal exploration for me. Come Whoever You Are responds both to Europe’s expectations from a Turkish artist and conveys the irony of the artist’s loneliness, how he rotates around himself. The subject of the artist is at the core of the story, and as in ancient metaphors, is desperate and whirls around himself with his own combustive energy.

“Come Whoever You Are” (1993) consisted of five life-size hollow plastic figures modelled with the head profile of Avşar and the clothing and poise of a swirling Dervish. Each one was placed on a turntable that gently rotated as their torsos glowed red from a light placed within. Avşar's first work in a foreign context did not shy away from obvious clichés, and yet why should it; he had been using other locally famous motifs in Turkey since 1985, such as the repeated portrait of Atatürk in works including the paintings “Atatürk / Alphabet” (1991) and “My Weak Body Will One Day Become Earth” (1995 – 2010). While the portrait in “Come Whoever You Are” was his own, the repetition here is akin to that lavished on Atatürk and hence promoted in stark contradiction with the ideal of the Dervish as a symbol of humility and modesty. These iconic references were for Avşar more fundamental than clichés or fetishised images, they were all models of the power of cultural reproduction. In particular, the symbolism of the Atatürk portrait, bust or figure cannot be devoid of its political, state and mythological implications, and so Avşar's early allusions to this key figure and the dance of the Dervish were the beginnings of an obsession with logos, brands, labelling and the media's embrace of popular imagery and repetition - methods that converge in the act of product design.

VA: My first days in New York were interesting and what you [Vasif Kortun] mentioned about my work led to not a “decline” but a shift. [Yet] after I realized that the art world is the same everywhere, I began to lose interest in art and take up the manifestations of pop culture in design and commerce. I was more impressed by the power advertising and New York life, or let’s put it this way, for me the motorbike couriers were more impressive than the art I saw at galleries in SOHO. Especially after meeting with a few galleries, I decided to stop following the art trail. Lexy and I decided to start a production company to both continue producing videos and to explore new fields.

Brooklyn Industries was essentially born from one idea that saw Avşar appropriate Marlboro billboard advertising campaigns on to bags. What he had been imagined as an urban art project, which would litter the New York cityscape with a repeated appropriation aback messenger bikers, spawned to become a production line. While the art world is incredibly referential, the design world is so on an expanded scale, and likewise, at the moment Avşar's personal statement was out-done by the scale of consumer demand for its replication, for him the role of the idea changed.

VA: The difference between art and design is the notion that art is what the artist makes for himself and design is made for a customer, and this is roughly accurate. In addition the most significant difference for me is that art has the luxury of being merely an idea.

The other factor that repositioned Avşar's role was that he could not imagine how his art practice that was so heavily influenced by a culture and political context completely at odds with that of New York could find its place.

VA: For example it is quite difficult to see the work I made in the 1990s in the context of Western art, if you were to make blindfolded gourmets taste it, it wouldn’t rank top. Maybe this is why I did not (for the most part) make or show art during the time I lived in New York. I didn’t feel up to imitating Western art and acting like an American artist to compete with them, and at the same time I couldn’t bring myself to tell my story because it was so long and foreign. Perhaps that’s why I decided to make design rather than art and try out my ideas, inventions in that sphere, because it contained no social or cultural reference and wasn’t concerned with issues like the local and global.

It was likely that Avşar's loneliness in New York, his lack of a community that could comprehend his references and their deeper meanings, but also his severed relationship with Turkey (the division between his old home and life and that of his new one had become so defined by the distinction between art and design), deeply influenced the next ten years.

It was not until 2008 that Avşar produced “Supreme” (2008) a work he describes as a serious endeavour to return to a focused artistic practice.

VA: I had postponed my return to art almost until I felt I needed it like oxygen. When I couldn’t hold my breath any longer, I started making art again in 2007 and in the beginning of 2008 I made Supreme/ALLAH as my first serious work. Yes, even though it wasn’t an oath, I stopped designing in the beginning of that year and devoted myself again entirely to making art.

We become ever more dependent on televised expressions of conflict, and while local historical and cultural references are lost on the majority, their appropriations by the media to create easy to read gestures and signals take on re-localised meanings that are the makings of paranoia, control, producing cycles of misunderstanding. Particular words, signs and imagery haunt us, for example the word Allah is marketed as a brand of fear in the U.S. as much as it is one of supremacy in the Islamic world. Several contemporary artists have explored the 99 names of Allah in their works, for example Kutluğ Ataman’s multi-channel video work “99 Names” (2002) in which the repeated image of a praying man increases in velocity and determination; or Shezad Dawood's series of neons (2007) that spell out the names attributed to Allah in Arabic, each one entangled in a symbol of the American frontier, tumbleweed. Yet, Avşar's work is simplicity itself – only the word Allah is presented, two simple sounds or syllables that hold some symmetry share a pure white neon in a basic capitalised font. By using Latin script he rids the word of its decorative appeal to the western eye but makes its reading unavoidable – a combination that is at once rudimentary and contradictory. The word is rendered in such a pure and banal form that it is almost impossible to respond to and ultimately this is its aim.

The clean statement “Supreme” and its numerous connotations, especially those expressed by the relationship of the U.S. with Islam, seems to have instigated a period of momentum for Avşar, in which once incompatible references were now imbued with international consternation. At the same time his return to Turkey allowed Avşar to once again form connections with his personal heritage within his artistic practice and to understand how these references were now relevant beyond their origins.

VA: I don’t know exactly what has changed now and why my desire to return to Istanbul and to make art emerged concurrently, but of course they are related. If we are to accept that the art I make is inherently connected to Turkey, it is evident that the former cannot exist without the latter. Just as it is difficult to interpret my works without knowing Turkish history, moral codes, work ethic, military, the infinite trinkets of Tahtakale and the high tech cheap sign maker of Galata. It gets harder for me to make such works the further I go away from Istanbul.

Acknowledging some of the earlier motifs explored in his works of the 90s Avşar began again to play with repetition, text and symbolic 'brand-like' references. “Wings of Terror” (2010), a series of strung up emergency siren lights that alternate red and white, could seem to be drawn from Avşar's time in New York or Istanbul. He was hounded in Turkey to complete his military service, but if you are not familiar with this story you would first conjure the ultimate Hollywood police squad the NYPD (a citation bolstered by the content of an earlier work “NONEISAFE” (2008) in which an NYPD car, one of the ultimate brands of macho invincibility, is the target of an explosion and sits blackened amid its own debris). Yet the title references the idea of a state of emergency far more than the installation, which on second observation is a rather attractive lighting display - one that could easily be found in the back streets of Istanbul's Galata district that Avşar sources as a place of production. Again the simplicity of the physical work allows multiple readings and the terror that Avşar refers to is determined by how quickly a string of bulbs can be associated with distress and concern. Another work, “Eye of the Beholder” (2010), sums up these acts of assumption within its title, and the work again plays with repetition, this time of bright green plastic fuel cans stripped of their labelling. Stacked and strung together twenty-one cans long, ten across and at the highest point six high, their form resembles a jeep but also a row of war bunkers. Either way there is no escaping the militarian and powerful air that this installation exudes. The green stain of the plastic is pungent and bright, the rhythmic pattern made by the cans likens its surface to camouflage and the red caps appear as hints of blood. The international craving for fuel is the composing element of this work – wars over oil, overriding systems of control, the structure that links the oil trade and international pipe lines together – a world order composed as geometric progression.

Avşar's references to power, military and State control continue to employ his preference for forms of branding – oil cans, emergency lights; text as logo – NYPD, ALLAH; and clear associations to consumerism – the quest for oil, his nods to Hollywood. The compositions also allude to design aesthetics and yet have no intrinsic use value. If such works form one leg of Avşar's return to an artistic practice, there is another direction that complements these statement pieces by means of a more personal voice that carries emotional resonance. Before completing his military service Avşar made the painting “Marines resting in grand mosque of Falluja” (2009). Falluja, a town in Iraq that experienced one of the highest civilian death tolls during the Gulf War in 1991, later encountered major military interventions during 2003 and 2004. Many American soldiers were killed in service at the time, while the U.S.'s use of white phosphorus left the people of Falluja battling ongoing birth defects and high cancer rates. Avşar's painting presents a peaceful scene of American soldiers in full military gear camouflaged with the mosque carpets they lie sleeping upon. While other works of Avşar hint at the overall 'packaging' of war and military symbolism, as well as its media branding, this painting is the first to unravel a picture of the individuals the system involves.

After his month-long military service Avşar continued with the series of paintings “Swearing Ceremony” (2010) and the video “Tekmil” (2010). The first depicts rows of temporary soldiers being sworn in during their first weeks of service. The vanishing point is located at the centre of each painting and suggests the infinite repetition of these events, it shows an endless conveyer belt of men available to take up these positions and how disposable their individuality becomes in this context. The question of individuality is brought into play again in the video work “Tekmil” which was made as a response piece after Avşar was picked out of the parade due to his incompetence at completing the Tekmil (a standard solute that identifies you to any army superior). Avşar invited his then superior to Istanbul and in a play reversal the artist videos his army drill sergeant being commanded to recite the soldier's salute, G3 weapon specifications and more personal responses to every question thrown at him.

When Avşar arrived in New York the city inundated him with new ideas and inspirations and these resulted in him redefining his whole approach to creative practice by experimenting and being highly successful within the world of design. Even if it is too simple to say that New York provoked a different kind of productivity, whereas Turkey remained the source of Avşar's intuition to create art, this is how his relation to each place has panned out. Ironically his return to Turkey is also not such a classic tale and is imbued with details that crave to be explored through his art. Not only did Avşar spend time in the military, an obligation he had shied from for over ten years, but Turkey presented itself to him in a new light. The economy had become strong and proud of itself, the population had revitalised, and in Istanbul the contemporary art scene had formed a network of spaces and artists. It seems possible that Avşar could sense this energy from afar and gradually the desire in him to produce art, in relation to his home, drew him back. “Tekmil” is hence a defining work of his return – asked to state his name and family background on command was difficult for Avşar in 2009, but in 2010 it was already a source of inspiration.

Interview extracts from a conversation between Vasıf Kortun and Vahap Avşar that took place in 2010 and is printed in full in Vahap Avşar, Rampa, 2011.

We All Laughed at Christopher Columbus at SALT

SALT Beyoglu

April 9

saltonline.org

Table Forest

Pigeons are People - Can Altay

Etiquette - Gülsün Karamustafa

La vie est à nous

The street is lit up by a warm red glow: 'La vie est à nous' reads a neon light framed by the window of Analix Forever. A positive phrase, so emotive and inspiring. A quote that seems to offer endless potential. It is all these things, especially when glanced upon hanging there alone, and for the passerby it burns on the retina and inspires the memory. Foremost a sign and title, the neon also takes on another role as it shrouds the space of Mario Rizzi's one-person exhibition at Analix Forever in colour. It is a sentence appropriated from two major sources by Rizzi to act as a canopy for a range of people's untold or more often unheard stories. While the reference to the 1936 film of the same name is not specific for Rizzi, he clearly carries a similar conscience to share with as many as possible the voices of the marginalised. Rizzi's use of the neon can also be imagined as a sequel to the vertical light installation of the same sentence and colour that opened Bertolucci's “Il Conformista” (1970) –but again this is ultimately not so important for Rizzi and hence the question introduced to the audience is whether this neon gesture, which hangs so bold and proud, can be read as a visual statement that plays with a saying for its own means.

Huddled under this malleable headline are three of Rizzi's video works and a selection of his photographs. “The Chicken Soup” (2008) and “impermanent” (2007) are substantial video pieces, to be viewed and reflected upon with dedication and compassion. Each film enters into the densely complex lives of Rizzi's chosen subjects and by way of the artist's embedded experience (Rizzi usually lives for months on location with the people he involves in his work) and precise editing, the protagonists' stories are elevated within a frame that feels very much inspired by their own personal feelings, and the spirit and nature of their situation. A cinema setting hosts “The Chicken Soup” and we are invited to enter for a while the lives of two women who were taken to Taiwan as migrant, virgin brides. While their stories are full of trauma, as they are first controlled by their broker and later their husband, mother-in-law or others, Rizzi also draws out each woman's beauty and hints at moments of hope despite their vulnerability, particularly in a scene where one woman dances for his camera. In the main space of the gallery the neon is balanced by the strong statement of ”impermanent”, a portrait of a 96 year-old man who dreams of and for Jerusalem, who talks of war and peace, responsibility and desire. Filmed in Amman, the film manages to merge one moment together with a lifetime and a whole century of shifting history and geography. As if he knows the title of the exhibition the protagonist of “impermanent” describes in his monologue that 'life is ours' to learn from, to shape and to share.

The photographs included in the exhibition individually embody a separate time, location and experience for Rizzi. Despite all the footage he has taken while working on videos, as well as the many photographic stills he has made or invited of others for books and research, it is extremely intriguing that each time-period in his practice is now marked by just one enduring image. There is a tenderness to this sparse, unembellished approach to imagery and it mimics the care that Rizzi takes when he works with others in his films. The fact that the photographs included in “La vie est à nous” are not shown alongside their accompanying film, video or book frees them from the danger of becoming the title image or poster pin up, and this is a concern that Rizzi challenges in a different way by means of his fabricated cinema poster for his video work “Murat and Ismail”.

“Den Dolder” (1999), a photograph taken by someone else, shows a woman lying face down in the snow. Initially taken as part of a project in which Rizzi gave throw-away cameras to the patients of a psychiatric hospital (to use, throw or sell as they chose) he was only intrigued by the images that did not include a face. A book of these photographs was produced and yet the only human, albeit without a face, was this girl freezing herself as if life had stopped and she knew nothing else than to share her despair with nature by numbing her pain with its cold. “Paris” (2002) is also faceless, but the movement of the girl's hair shows she is very much alive and could spin around to face the camera at any second. She is a friend of Rizzi's captured crossing the street, her vivacity making it into this hand-picked pile of images maybe because she acts as a counterbalance to “Den Dolder”. Rizzi again inserts a moment of hope that within the frame of the gallery traverses time and space. “Drafting Moods” (2002) is also a lucky shot, taken backstage one evening after a theatrical performance. It is the only photo taken by Rizzi during this 2002 project where he again asked others to take images on his behalf. “New Orleans” (2008) is the interior of a temporary living situation inhabited by an illegal immigrant rebuilding a home in New Orleans. “Tarantella” (2003) a couple dancing as part of a project in Berlin where Rizzi created a space on the S-Bahn route for classes in life-painting, photography and dance. Finally “PINK!” (2005) is a portrait of a transvestite taken for a publication that included documents detailing acts of discrimination, police reports and immigration issues. “PINK!” again, is the one image that endures in this series, another photograph that needs no explanation as it humbly speaks a thousand words.

Perhaps this other side of Rizzi's very precisely tuned practice began with “gling-gló memo” (2001), a film edited mainly from found footage of which some sections include the artist as a child. There is no dialogue and the editing contains repeats and turns around in and about itself as if Rizzi himself has entered a conundrum and a maze of his own past that he is trying to solve. The work closes on an image of Rizzi and two of his cousins. The women wear very similar dresses and this repetition naturally exaggerates the effects of Rizzi's labyrinthine editing. But at the same time he holds this frame, he pauses the work right here, as if the tangle has become too much and by extending this one moment in time something more, something clearer, an answer may emerge. This one image, the final still, is then lifted from its impossible condition within the film - where it exists as both past, present and memory - to join the other markers of Rizzi's practice on the walls of the gallery. Here it takes a special place as the only filmic still that is liberated from the cycle of moving-image, and again very tenderly Mario gives it the opportunity to exist outside of its journey and in this precise and only case, his own personal story.

Shifting Ink

	Philadelphia Museum of Art
	Christodoulos Panayiotou, detail of "(Untitled) ACT I: The Departure," 2007. Courtesy of the Collection of Nicos Pattichis.		Live Cinema/In the Round: Contemporary Art from the East Mediterranean September 17, 2010 – February 6, 2011 Philadelphia Museum of Art 26th Street and the Benjamin Franklin Parkway Philadelphia, PA 19130 (215) 763-8100 philamuseum.org
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	SIX ARTISTS FROM THE EAST MEDITERRANEAN EXPLORE THE INTERACTION BETWEEN CINEMA AND REALITY Live Cinema/In the Round (September 17, 2010 – February 6, 2011) features the works of Ziad Antar, Inci Eviner, Hassan Khan, Gülsün Karamustafa, Maha Maamoun, and Christodoulos Panayiotou, artists from the East Mediterranean region who explore how cinema informs representations of reality through videos, installation and performance works. The title, In the Round takes its cue from theater-in-the-round, in which the audience surrounds the stage, allowing a more intimate experience for the viewer and a more realistic performance from the actors. Inspired by this theatrical technique, the works on view are not simply projected on a two-dimensional plane; they surround the audience and also migrate to other galleries within the museum. In each work, the actors (or sometimes the blatant absence of an actor) play out a specific role that invites the audience to imagine other possible narratives for the backdrops that host them. Live Cinema/In the Round is organized by Istanbul-based guest curator November Paynter. The artists participating in this exhibition live in or are from countries located in the East Mediterranean, a region denoting the countries that are geographically located to the east of the Mediterranean Sea and happen to be linked by a continuous land mass. Over the course of the last decade the contemporary art institutions and initiatives in the countries of the East Mediterranean have created more opportunities for mutual cultural exchange and dialogue. A number of artistic residencies and funds now exist that encourage artists to travel between cities such as Cairo, Istanbul, Beirut and Nicosia. The artists selected for this exhibition often present their work in this region of the world and their inclusion in this exhibition was motivated primarily by their interest in performance-based practices and in particular the cinematic references found within their work. Some of the works in the exhibition make use of found film footage or reconstruct known film scenes, whereas others create a dialogue with artefacts in the Museum's collection. Hassan Khan' s work G.R.A.H.A.M. presents a portrait as both subject and audience in a continuously-shot real-time video of an individual asked to remain completely silent even while being interrogated off-camera by the artist. Gülsün Karamustafa's Bekledigimiz Günler (The Days We Have Waited for) (2007), is the portrait of Istanbul at a specific moment in time. The work is comprised of footage taken from 1960s and 1970s newsreels that viewed now appears self-promotional and as such emphasizes the power of cinema as a social tool of communication. Building upon an earlier theme exploring the relationship between Egypt's pyramids and its cinematic traditions, Maha Maamoun's 9-minute film2026 (2010) steps into the future to consider the pyramids and their relationship to Cairo's city structure 16 years from now. (Untitled) Act I: The Departure (2007) and (Untitled) Act III: The Glorious Return(2008) by Christodoulos Panayiotou suggest scenes of introduction and finale for the exhibition. Panayiotou's backdrop works present rolled theatre backdrops with a small reference photograph of their unfurled images as they would look when hung on stage. Infiltrating the historical galleries of the museum are three video works by Inci Eviner titled New Citizen (2009). Here, traditional decorative patterns are animated by moving female protagonists and their disconnected body parts in choreographies that deconstruct the surrounding motifs. In Ziad Antar's La Souris (2009) a toy mouse is wound up by the artist and directed at a real mouse trap over and over again. The scene is a simple empty stage where the mouse is the only performer. While Hassan Khan's video G.R.A.H.A.M. acts as a steady, contemplative platform for the exhibition that harks back to the genre of portraiture, it is offset by the dense content and clear film references of Gülsün Karamustafa's and Maha Maamoun's works. Christodoulos Panayiotou's backdrops appear to open and close a conversation between all the works in the exhibition while reminding the viewer of the defining role of the actor or narrator in a film, or the lack thereof. Inci Eviner's videos seem to have escaped the borders of the official video gallery to virally spread throughout the Museum, while finally, Ziad Antar's video La Souris is included as a hint for the audience to question what it is they respond to and then choose to see within an artwork. Related Programs: INCIDENCE September 17, 2010 at 7 p.m. Slought Foundation, 4017 Walnut Street, Philadelphia. Free to the general public. INCIDENCE, a live concert with Hassan Khan, will be presented in collaboration with Slought Foundation. INCIDENCE is a seamless, continuous stream of improvisational pieces and music compositions by Khan accompanied by video sequences specially shot by the artist. Live Cinema Live: An Afternoon of Conversations. September 18, 2010, starting at 1 p.m. Trabant University Center Theater, University of Delaware, 17 West Main Street, Newark, Delaware November Paynter and Adelina Vlas, 1:00 p.m. Nora Alter and René J. Marquez, 2:30 p.m. Hassan Khan and Brian Kuan Wood, 4:00 p.m. About the curator: November Paynter has been based in Istanbul since 2002 where she worked as a Curator at Platform Garanti Contemporary Art Center until the end of 2006. She was one of two Assistant Curators of the 9th International Istanbul Biennial in 2005. In 2003 she was the recipient of the Premio Lorenza Bonaldi per L'arte – EnterPrize and the first curator under the age of 30 to be recognized with this award. In 2007, Paynter took the temporary position of Consultant Curator at Tate Modern for the exhibitionGlobal Cities, before moving back to Istanbul the same year to work as Director of the Dubai Artist Pension Trust and as a freelance curator. In addition to writing texts for exhibition publications and artist monographies, she has written for art periodicals including Artreview, ArtAsiaPasific, Bidoun, andArtforum. About Live Cinema: Live Cinema is a series of programs in the Video Gallery of the Museum that explore the vast production of single-channel video and filmwork by a diverse group of local, national, and international artists. In the last decades an ever-increasing number of contemporary artists have appropriated these mediums as an artistic outlet, in a dialogue with the early video and Super 8 practices of the 60s and the tradition of experimental filmmaking. Each program of the Live Cinema series focuses on a specific aspect of this work, in order to both map and analyze this important facet of contemporary art production. This exhibition is made possible by The Women's Committee of the Philadelphia Museum of Art and The Turkish Cultural Foundation. Public events are supported in part by the University of Delaware Interdisciplinary Humanities Research Center and by the Slought Foundation.

Channel one plus one

It is impossible to predict what effect an exhibition space and time will have on Guclu Öztekin's works. Three weeks ago the floor of Rampa was almost obscured by a scattered carpet of his paintings and sketches. Yet up until the moment that installation began this paper-based portfolio had only experienced its first period of production. Once in the exhibition space, a secondary process, which saw the paintings morph into and with the gallery's walls and floor, began. This undulating, cognitive involvement Öztekin assumes with his works and the new forms and techniques he applies to them as time progresses, forms the essential substance of his practice. While each painting was previously autonomous in its own frame of paper, when re-positioned in a three-dimensional exhibition context Öztekin sets to work once again to assert a new layer of language to unify threads of cross-reference throughout the space.

Öztekin explains his process of working as one of following a series of channels. These channels represent different focuses and applications of techniques, but they do not always follow one direct path and can branch off on another tributary as the context shifts. Several channels clearly prevail within Rampa: firstly and most true to the previous stage of production - there are the paintings that have simply been hung without any on-site alterations; then there are the site-specific wall paintings conceived during the installation period; another channel allows for the multi-layering of works, where either a number of works or techniques become one, or one work becomes many; a common channel is that of erasure; and lastly in contrast to the former, is a play on dimensions whereby what was previously a flat work on paper is now seen in Rampa as a sculpted three-dimensional form. These channels criss-cross the gallery and place the audience in the midst of a web of shapes, forms, techniques and repetitions that express the culminating channel: one of composition.

It is intriguing that most of Öztekin's works start their lives as rather traditionally rendered paintings. Often the canvas is a sheet of rectangular paper on which he paints images that can be read as understood forms – such as faces, characters, cartoon-like vehicles and text. Yet this is just the base for the more defining acts of his practice, within which he speculates on the limits of painting, and more literally on the limits of his own 'traditional' paintings, their surface and content. The act of erasing his own works, by inflicting them with punched out holes and scalpel incisions, results in exquisite textures and allows for subtle movements of light and hence form. Often the networks of holes result in delicate webs of papery lace and when these are suspended over silver foiled wall-tapes as many are in Rampa, they shimmer incandescently, like fragile insect wings. Other works here have been systematically carved away to leave nothing but a skeleton of their original body on the wall and their flesh lies in a rainbow of tatters on the floor. When Öztekin foresees a different type of conclusion for a work he employs glue and water to papier maché the previously flat image into a new enlivened form. A flat face becomes a caricature of itself, or an area of ceiling a landscape of stalactites. If his channels interfere, the erasures can become inverted and are then used as stencils for further creation; or the skeleton of a work that could be hung straight is instead positioned in a wave-like form across a wall painting that then leads into another work and so and and so forth.

As Öztekin breaks loose from his own set of structures, the installation takes on a multi-lingual shape. There are so many details of action and technique in his world that the cumulative experience one enjoys in the gallery can only be momentary. Like the often ephemeral quality of the works on display, their life-time in this symbiotic relationship is not meant to last and each piece will eventually return to a more standard form similar to the one they originated from. So, it is only for this one month that they will live and breathe together and Öztekin's speculations on the limits of painting are turned into a material scenario way beyond the confines of a canvas, a frame or a piece of paper.