Haluk Akakçe: The Dervish
05 Jun - 24 Jul 2010
Haluk Akakçe, “The Dervish”, 2010
Single channel video, black and white, silent, 2:30 min., (still)
Single channel video, black and white, silent, 2:30 min., (still)
Haluk Akakçe, “The Dervish”, 2010
Single channel video, black and white, silent, 2:30 min., (still)
Single channel video, black and white, silent, 2:30 min., (still)
Haluk Akakçe
The Dervish
5 June – 24 July 2010
Haluk Akakçe (*1970, Ankara) lives and works in Istanbul and New York. He is one of the leading Turkish contemporary artists and has made an international name for himself with solo exhibitions in the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, in the Museum für Gegenwartskunst in Basel and in the Tate London. Following “They Call It Love, I Call It Madness” in 2007, this present exhibition is the artist’s second solo show in our gallery.
In his new, mostly large-scale pictures, Akakçe places the meaning of gravity at the center of his artistic engagement. Abstract forms that float weightlessly over the picture plane contradict the law of gravity. Other forms prove to have a static character and counteract this weightlessness; they are “like an anchor in the picture frame” and generate the context or the picture’s “framework plot”. The forms and contours are a nature that is neither strictly geometrical nor strictly organic. They oscillate between filigree, concentric and ellipsoid shapes, with a stencil-like or cutout effect. By means of a mutual approach, then a repellence and overlaying, they arrive at a rapport with one another on the picture plane. The almost graphic severity of their contours is countermanded by a palette of pale to luminous colors. The suggestion of several picture levels and thus of depth results from the tonality of the colors and the precise placement of the forms.
As in the earlier drawings, reliefs and films, the new pictures in acrylic paint also evoke imaginary architecture and utopian worlds. Akakçe, who studied architecture in Ankara, has been greatly influenced by the experimental works of the American theorist and architect, Lebbeus Woods. Similar to Woods, Akakçe also tries to translate the elusive “visual and spatial energy” of a space into a vocabulary that seems neither rational nor constructed. Akakçe—who ascribes greater significance to intuition and spirituality than to theory and rationality—is more interested in the openness of forms and the illumination of their transformative and metaphysical potential.
In contrast to his paintings, the cinematic medium offers Akakçe the possibility “to have a heartfelt dialogue with the audience because one has control of their perception over time.” As in Woods’ visionary worlds, the film “Shadow Machine” (which we showed in our last exhibition) lets buildings as well as landscapes float like interstellar vehicles through unpeopled space. Akakçe, who also studied performance at the Royal College of Art in London, is interested in the precise choreography of the shapes and movements of volumes. In his newest film “The Dervish” (2010), a sculptural form stands at the center of things that, projected into the room, has the effect of a monochrome, three-dimensional object. Inwardly twisted Möbius strips form a closed system that obeys the principle of infinite movement. As though hypnotized, small glass spheres wander in rhythmic intervals along the tactile-like structure and invite viewers to lose themselves in their spheric configurations.
Birgid Uccia
Vernissage: Friday, 4 June 2010, 6 to 8 pm.
The Dervish
5 June – 24 July 2010
Haluk Akakçe (*1970, Ankara) lives and works in Istanbul and New York. He is one of the leading Turkish contemporary artists and has made an international name for himself with solo exhibitions in the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, in the Museum für Gegenwartskunst in Basel and in the Tate London. Following “They Call It Love, I Call It Madness” in 2007, this present exhibition is the artist’s second solo show in our gallery.
In his new, mostly large-scale pictures, Akakçe places the meaning of gravity at the center of his artistic engagement. Abstract forms that float weightlessly over the picture plane contradict the law of gravity. Other forms prove to have a static character and counteract this weightlessness; they are “like an anchor in the picture frame” and generate the context or the picture’s “framework plot”. The forms and contours are a nature that is neither strictly geometrical nor strictly organic. They oscillate between filigree, concentric and ellipsoid shapes, with a stencil-like or cutout effect. By means of a mutual approach, then a repellence and overlaying, they arrive at a rapport with one another on the picture plane. The almost graphic severity of their contours is countermanded by a palette of pale to luminous colors. The suggestion of several picture levels and thus of depth results from the tonality of the colors and the precise placement of the forms.
As in the earlier drawings, reliefs and films, the new pictures in acrylic paint also evoke imaginary architecture and utopian worlds. Akakçe, who studied architecture in Ankara, has been greatly influenced by the experimental works of the American theorist and architect, Lebbeus Woods. Similar to Woods, Akakçe also tries to translate the elusive “visual and spatial energy” of a space into a vocabulary that seems neither rational nor constructed. Akakçe—who ascribes greater significance to intuition and spirituality than to theory and rationality—is more interested in the openness of forms and the illumination of their transformative and metaphysical potential.
In contrast to his paintings, the cinematic medium offers Akakçe the possibility “to have a heartfelt dialogue with the audience because one has control of their perception over time.” As in Woods’ visionary worlds, the film “Shadow Machine” (which we showed in our last exhibition) lets buildings as well as landscapes float like interstellar vehicles through unpeopled space. Akakçe, who also studied performance at the Royal College of Art in London, is interested in the precise choreography of the shapes and movements of volumes. In his newest film “The Dervish” (2010), a sculptural form stands at the center of things that, projected into the room, has the effect of a monochrome, three-dimensional object. Inwardly twisted Möbius strips form a closed system that obeys the principle of infinite movement. As though hypnotized, small glass spheres wander in rhythmic intervals along the tactile-like structure and invite viewers to lose themselves in their spheric configurations.
Birgid Uccia
Vernissage: Friday, 4 June 2010, 6 to 8 pm.