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.

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

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.

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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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

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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

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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

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) 

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!

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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

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 Cristiana 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?

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

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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