Nevin Aladağ, Mahmut Celayir, Cansu Çakar, İpek Duben, Dennis (Mehmet Refik) Gün, Neşe Karasipahi, Berk Kır, Murat Morova, Agnieszka Polska, Peter Robinson, Furkan Öztekin, Ayfer Tutkan and Billy Apple®
Curator: Misal Adnan Yıldız
The Weight of the World* is based on the conversations of Misal Adnan Yıldız, one of the main exhibition co-curators of the 6th Ural Industrial Biennial, director of Staatliche Kunsthalle Baden-Baden and a former graduate of Sabancı University, and Derya Yücel, director of Kasa Galeri, based on their architectural, conceptual and curatorial quests--and for Yıldız, it is a ticket back to home.
Although the project had to change due to the pandemic, realities of artistic production today, and many other reasons, it still focuses on the new works of Furkan Öztekin, who produces and lives in Tekirdağ, and it is centered around the effort to bring different generations together, the environment and architecture of Istanbul, Karaköy and the gallery, and the practical relationship of body and movement.
The focus of the selection is literary, poetic, conceptual and abstract artistic productions that resonate within a series; works that do not fit on the screen and will never be seen on the screen (which Yıldız worked on and conceptualized as a chain, series and dilemma). Surfaces, forms, bodies that we would like to see side by side, in a line, on top of their physicality... From Murat Morova living in Istanbul to İpek Duben, Berk Kır and Ayfer Tutkan, it brings together artists working with different materials and flexible but resilient approaches. In addition, this is the first time Yıldız is sharing works by Peter Robinson, Nevin Aladağ and others, from the personal MAY Collection that developed in parallel with exhibition production, called 'labour of love'. Other contributors to the exhibition are Mahmut Celayir and the burning mountains of Dersim that he painted years ago; award-winning artist Agnieszka Polska from Berlin with her new film, Cansu Çakar looking from Karaköy to Hagia Sophia, the old Istanbul skyline and the Golden Horn through the axis of her own body, and Neşe Karasipahi with her sculptures that revitalize the collective memory. Dennis (Mehmet Refik) Gün, who passed away years ago, and Billy Apple® from New Zealand, one of Yıldız's long-term collaborators and a prominent name of the pop generation, are also part of the exhibition. From a biographical perspective, Yıldız speaks candidly about the exhibition in Kasa:
“This exhibition materialized in swings, going to and fro, like the movement of a pendulum. While looking dejectedly at the old city, don't you have any questions you want to ask the future? Returning to this unique place, to which I owe my first exhibitions, collaborations, spatial and conceptual experiments, after 15 years… A temporary space where the viewer takes the Kasa like a legacy, like a trustee, like a loan object, for a while to stay with him; I designed it as a promenade where you can walk back and forth… For those who miss the lightness, weight, and incomparable experience of being in the same room with an art object, an idea, an invention, in these days when we can't be alone with ourselves... Can screens replace this? To all heartbroken Istanbulites, to souls who cannot acclimatize to the post-pandemic world… Mostly, as Murat Morova, who reminded the concept of tawafuk in the beauty of a coincidence during a phone call, said, to those who still stubbornly live... To those who want to stay with themselves for a moment... The floor is RGB in the same scale as my Billy Apple® tattoo on three different grays, so that they can feel the weight and lightness of of the world, both when going up and coming down.”
The Kasa Galeri event will turn the exhibition into an online research presentation. Recalling a precious literary reference for each room, the curator recommends the audience to visit the exhibition alone and think with their eyes as much as possible:
- "The weight of the world is love
Under the burden of solitude
Under the burden of dissatisfaction
The weight, the weight we carry is love.”
Allen Ginsberg
- "(...) on your deathbed, if you were told that you would be granted one more day, what day of your life would you like to relive, my wise friend?"
Antranik Dzarugyan, Çocukluğu Olmayan Adamlar
- “A life without love has been lived in vain.”
Shams Tabrizi
- The Weight of the World exhibition derives its title from the poem “Song” by Beatnik poet Allen Ginsberg in San Jose in 1954. It is inspired by the architectural reality of the gallery, which is an old bank vault, and feeds on the sense of direction and space perception it demands from the viewer. As the potential viewer descends the stairs to a shelter, cellar or ground zero, they are invited to an introspective process, a journey within themselves and an excavation to be made into their inner worlds. The instinct to take refuge in a safer place from danger mingles with the feeling of going underground; this place is dark, dim, uncanny and without light, like the places where 'living documents' are kept for future use without an audience or witnesses… Ginsberg's optimism about Flower Children and 1968, is the best antidote, medicine, cure and light of hope at a time when we feel hopeless, resistant and helpless against the apocalyptic destruction of nature, social insanity and political crises. It can even be good for our apocalyptic scrolls or endless apocalyptic surfing. The exhibition clearly describes how our balance of mind and body is also about how we relate to the earth, nature, environment and planet. This poem, which will be read again with selected works of art, is a short-term loan lent to those who have the time, courage and strength to escape from the filthy noise of Karaköy and take shelter in themselves. It's like a scenography, set or scene where a passerby enters and shoots their own story. A poetic space where everyone will leave their own interpretation, or a narrative space that changes every moment. A possibility where love, reflection and introspection will merge.
Misal Adnan Yıldız would like to thank
Gülseren Yıldız, Neşe Karasipahi, Egemen Demirci, Berk Kır, Furkan Öztekin, Murat Alat, Onurr (Onur Özdemir), Çağla İlk and Derya Yücel for their ears, hearts and patience; Galeri Nev Istanbul and Pi Art Works, Art Sümer and Ayşe Umur for their support; Tucker Smith and The Estate of Allen Ginsberg for research and correspondence.
