The elusive graffiti artist, political activist, film director, painter and long time fugitive that for years has gone by the pseudonymous name of Banksy, was arrested early the morning of October 20 by London’s Metropolitan Police.
The protesters around Gezi Park united as Tear Gas brothers in the past two weeks.
Tear Gas is a chemical weapon. Tear gas works by irritating mucous membranes in the eyes, nose, mouth and lungs, and causes crying, sneezing, coughing, difficulty breathing, pain in the eyes, temporary blindness, etc. Exposure on skin may cause chemical burns.
Ayvansaray is one of the areas being rapidly gentrified at the moment. The inhabitants of the quarter have different ways to deal with the fact, that they most probably will have to leave their houses and working spaces to wealthier people. A certain kind of urban dialogue emerges from the different icons being used in the quarter.
An exhibition at Salt Istanbul and traces of an intervention by a counter-action taking place in March – adding graffiti’s to the empty spaces on the walls within the show.
The exhibition displays a plethora of documentary material presenting along with restaged elements from specific exhibitions that took place in the past in Turkey, especially the 1. Mayıs Sergisi [First May Exhibition] organized by Görsel Sanatçılar Derneği – GSD [Visual Artists Association]. The project will revisit issues of artists’ rights, involvement and collaborations with workers unions, and the function and positioning of art in public space.
A group of young Turkish artists prepared an intervention on March 15 2013 leaving signs on the walls as a gesture of ‘turnabout’ by an act to “turning expressions of the capitalist system and its media culture against itself”.
Decide yourself… between the paradox of an intervention using the spectacle itself, of displaying unspectacular works of art concerning artists rights and art in public space within the frame of a museum and a video connecting these elements in a well known way of daily motions…
SALT Beyoğlu – Istanbul
JANUARY 31 – APRIL 21, 2013