PRESS CLIPPING
The most memorable viewing experience was Downward Straits, a video installation by Ergin Cavusoglu, shown during the Beck’s Features exhibition at the ICA. It involved close shots of oil tankers crossing the Bosphorus Strait in Istanbul in the dead of the night. The sound involved wireless messages in between control towers. The piece documented a somewhat sinister activity with intense poetry and beauty. It evoked a multitude of emotions, more than you would get from a multi-million dollar film.Kutlug Ataman, The Daily Telegraph (18 December 2004)
The rich and mesmerising visual style of Cavusoglu's video installations, such as Downward Straits, shown at this year's Becks' Futures, have attracted a lot of attention recently, probably because his work has an intensity that sets it apart from the dominant documentary style of video or photo-based art. Tahtakale is a four-screen installation that portrays a group of market traders going about their business in Istanbul's Grand Bazaar while, on another screen, labourers queue to receive goods. Poised In The Infinite Ocean was shot around the Bay of Biscay and shows a lighthouse and seaside chateau being buffeted by a storm. The videos are infused with mourning, as if the intimate human presence is an ephemeral thing within a larger structure, whether nature or capitalism, and Cavusoglu seems motivated by a desire to capture moments and places as they become obliterated by these implacable forces.
Craig Burnett, The Guide, The Guardian (23-29 October 2004)