Library of Babel 2- “Successive Totems and other Stories”
Rafet Arslan is questioning the relationship between a Totem as an item of eternity and icons, that got pseudo Totems of our daily life and consumerism. The Chanel-bottle, Car-brands and genderbased icons got Totems of a lifestyle, that is falsly confused with an eternity it doesn’t include.
Library of Babel 1 – “Ziggurat Tamer”
The reference of the “Library of Babel” evokes a couple of associations. The famous short story of Jorge Luis Borges’ (1941) describes the architecture of a universe-size Library. The discussion following the text scrolled around the infinity of knowledge regarding endless possibilities of combining knowledge and creating new relations. Several artists have worked on this motive, while Borges himself named a collection of fantastic narrations his “Library of Babel” (1974).
What is the magic about hair? Why does it carry such a symbolism? Factually hair is made of a tough protein called keratin. In the hair bulb, living cells divide and grow to build the hair shaft.
Mehmet Güleryüz comments on the Protests in Istanbul from Mahalla Festival on Vimeo.
Turkish artist Mehmet Güleryüz sees the protests in Istanbul and other parts of Turkey as a fundamental fight for civil rights and an answer to the despotic style of Primeminister Erdoğan.
Hassan Khan was presented in a complex magnificant show at the Museum Salt Istiklal (21.09.12-06.01.13). The Egyptian artist participated in a serial of events, several talks, a filmscreening and the final Music-performance “Superstructure II.” at the music club Ghetto.
Listen to Sperstructure II and watch the other visuals beside!
Khan likes to compare Istanbul and Cairo. For him both metropoles have similaritis. They are chaotic melting pots with a buzzing scene of upcoming artists and other creatives gaining space in the central city spaces. But it is important to realize the distortion of daily life in this rapidly changing environments. This fact is beautifully picked as a central theme in the Videoinstallation below. A working couple using its freetime after work to walk through Cairo and to fight the whole time 🙂
Hassan Khan from InEnArt on Vimeo.
Hüseyin B. Alptekin from InEnArt on Vimeo.
Hüseyin Bahri Alptekin left us five years ago and that is the only action we’ll never forgive him.
By remembering Hüseyin as a friend and artist there are thousands of valuable moments coming to my mind.
I loved his work for the Istanbul Biennial 2005. He had convinced the Monsignore of the St. Marco Cathedral in Venice to send Replicas of the Quadriga to Istanbul. They had been stolen by the Venetians during the Forth Crusade (1202-1204).
They were part of the Hippodrom in the old part of the city of Konstantinopolis and are probably of Roman origin. The robbery was part of one of the bloodiest invasions of a Capital with no mercy for the Christian population or their toppled head of state.
Hüseyin produced tiles with Horse motives for the show and was searching for a sponsor out of the the circle of the Turkish tile-industry. I am not sure if he was successful with this. His biggest problem was the lack of interest of collectors for his art during his lifetime.
It is fanatstic, that the MoMa made the work “H-Fact: Hospitality/Hostility” part of its collection last year. The evaluation of Hüseyins work he really deserved so much. Salt Istanbul did a wonderful retrospective in 2009 with the title: “I am not a studio artist”. No Hüseyin really wasn’t.
R.i.P. Love and sunshine for his wife Camilla und his son Marino.