Page 28 - Turkinsurance Digital Magazine

28 Events

EXHIBITION

Cengiz Çekil: Bugün de Yaşıyorum (Today, I am still living)
Dates: Monday, March 13, 2023 ~ Sunday, October 22, 2023

Place: Arter

Curator: Eda Berkmen
Cengiz Çekil (1945–2015), one of the pioneers of conceptual art in Turkey, began using ma-
terials from everyday life in his works starting from the 1970s. Working by detaching and re-
peating ready-made objects, established expressions, and forms from their original contexts and
transforming them, the artist creates multi-layered artworks that go beyond the conventional
definitions and categories of art, activating collective memory. Çekil, with a critical and witty
style, addresses phenomena such as modernization, urbanization, globalization, political vio-
lence, and consumer culture that defined the socio-political climate of his time. By juxtaposing
local and contemporary issues with universal and abstract forms, he explores existential ques-
tions surrounding concepts like death, energy, time, and belief. Through clocks, newspapers, and
calendars, which are prominent in many of the artist’s works, Çekil not only reveals the agenda,
current trends, and prevailing thought systems of the era but also contemplates the definition
and representation of time. Especially after the 1980s in Çekil’s artworks, elements such as monumental tombs and altar-like
structures, as well as motifs of sacrifice and talismans, address a threatening social order that aims to control individuals through
violence and fear, while also drawing attention to humanity’s ongoing passage of time, emphasizing the need to find meaning
in life with all its fragility and transience. Cengiz Çekil’s most comprehensive exhibition to date, titled “Bugün de Yaşıyorum”
(Today, I am still living) is inspired by the artist’s work titled “Günce” (Diary) (1976). For this piece, Çekil marked a date in
a notebook every day for approximately two months and stamped the phrase “Today, I am still living.” On the last page of the
notebook, the phrase “I am going to the military” is written. The retrospective exhibition titled Bugün de Yaşıyorum (Today, I
am still living) on the 4th and 3rd floors of Arter aims to shed light on Çekil’s life as a daily ritual of celebration despite all its
difficulties and emphasizes that the artist’s works still maintain their relevance.

Sarkis: ENDLESS

Dates: Friday, May 05, 2023 ~ Sunday, February 04, 2024

Place: Arter
Conceived to coexist with a space, to embrace spatial references and associations,
or to forge a different space altogether, the works of Sarkis are reinterpreted and
transformed by the artist on every occasion they are exhibited. The exhibition titled
ENDLESS, presented on Arter’s 2nd floor, brings together a selection of the artist’s
works from the Arter Collection in the same gallery space for the very first time,
endowing them with new life and new experiences. ENDLESS spans a wide period
of time in Sarkis’ production, from the 1980s through to Respiro – an installation
exhibited in the Pavilion of Turkey at the Venice Biennale in 2015. In addition
to concepts and themes frequently encountered in Sarkis’ works, such as warming,
burning, camouflage, memory, traces, atelier and home, ENDLESS emphasises the
crucial role played by light, colour and music in his artistic practice. In the exhibi-
tion, Sarkis restages works charged with memories of different pasts and places – such as Icons of Istanbul (1986–2023), Elle
Danse (1990), Transflammation (1996–2001), Mixed Retrospective (2001), Calling (To the Bees) I (2013), as well as the
mirrors and neon lights from Respiro which were donated to the Arter Collection in 2021 – and reinterprets each of them within
a larger body they construct together in their current setting. ENDLESS mainly consists of existing works drawn from the Arter
Collection, but also features two new pieces welcoming visitors as they enter the space. Sarkis requested staff members working
on the exhibition setup to leave black fingerprints on the wall, calling to mind an era burdened by political upheavals, natural
disasters and loss. Just beside this dark circle, a wheelchair adorned with white feathers looks ready to move at any moment and
leads us to the lights and colours of Respiro, paving a way for hope. Sarkis also sustains his dialogue with other artists, both his
predecessors and contemporaries, through the works presented in this exhibition. Johann Sebastian Bach’s Cantata No. 127 and
Dmitri Shostakovich’s Quartet No. 15 resonating from the works installed at opposite ends of the space, converge with the mu-
sic composed for Respiro by Jacopo Baboni-Schilingi, transforming ENDLESS into a staging for three independent textures of
sound orchestrated by the artist. The works of Ali Kazma and Domenika Kaesdorf, included in ENDLESS at Sarkis’ invitation,
further enrich and broaden the world Sarkis builds in the exhibition.