Aykan Safoǧlu
15 Sep - 20 Oct 2013
AYKAN SAFOǦLU
Off-White Tulips
15 September – 20 October 2013
In his first solo show in Berlin artist Aykan Safoǧlu (* 1984 in Istanbul, lives and works in Berlin) presents his film Off-White Tulips (orig. Kirik Beyaz Laleler), a tribute to the US-American writer James Baldwin. In the dense, twenty-four minutes long video essay the artist links Baldwins self-imposed exile in Turkey with own biographical details and an exploration of his native country. The artist juxtaposes anecdotes of James Baldwin's time in Turkey with historical informations and experiences from his childhood and acts as a storyteller. On the basis of old photographs and other images we follow the traces of James Baldwin as much as those of Aykan Safoǧlu and his family through Istanbul. The mounting technique is amazingly simple, the artist places and combines the photographs, images and clippings in front of the camera and our eyes. The emphasis is on the personal story he tells us that completely blurs fact and fiction. Safoǧlu calls this form biomythography – an invented, made-up life story as defined by the US-American writer and activist Audre Lord who described herself as a "black lesbian feminist mother warrior poet". With his video essay Aykan Safoǧlu brings up questions that also widely informed James Baldwin's work: form - content, original - copy, interior - exterior, center - periphery, amateur - professional, past - present. Off-White Tulips tries to look at history from rather marginal perspectives in order to explore alternative interpretations of cultural artifacts and differences, queer politics and identity. It is concerned with black survival strategies in a white mainstream, as the title already suggests.
The artist has received the big prize of the city of Oberhausen at the Short Film Festival in Oberhausen in 2013 for the film.
Off-White Tulips
15 September – 20 October 2013
In his first solo show in Berlin artist Aykan Safoǧlu (* 1984 in Istanbul, lives and works in Berlin) presents his film Off-White Tulips (orig. Kirik Beyaz Laleler), a tribute to the US-American writer James Baldwin. In the dense, twenty-four minutes long video essay the artist links Baldwins self-imposed exile in Turkey with own biographical details and an exploration of his native country. The artist juxtaposes anecdotes of James Baldwin's time in Turkey with historical informations and experiences from his childhood and acts as a storyteller. On the basis of old photographs and other images we follow the traces of James Baldwin as much as those of Aykan Safoǧlu and his family through Istanbul. The mounting technique is amazingly simple, the artist places and combines the photographs, images and clippings in front of the camera and our eyes. The emphasis is on the personal story he tells us that completely blurs fact and fiction. Safoǧlu calls this form biomythography – an invented, made-up life story as defined by the US-American writer and activist Audre Lord who described herself as a "black lesbian feminist mother warrior poet". With his video essay Aykan Safoǧlu brings up questions that also widely informed James Baldwin's work: form - content, original - copy, interior - exterior, center - periphery, amateur - professional, past - present. Off-White Tulips tries to look at history from rather marginal perspectives in order to explore alternative interpretations of cultural artifacts and differences, queer politics and identity. It is concerned with black survival strategies in a white mainstream, as the title already suggests.
The artist has received the big prize of the city of Oberhausen at the Short Film Festival in Oberhausen in 2013 for the film.