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Posts Tagged ‘Turkey’

Tear Gas brothers

Why bye

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.

Hassan Khan in Istanbul

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  • Lust (2008)
  • Smartphone pics
  • moments of people
  • and objects
  • base new narrations
  • reset in various contexts

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.

Ghetto from InEnArt on Vimeo.

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.

Remembering Hüseyin Bahri Alptekin

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.

http://senseoftime.inenart.eu/?p=2341

Christmas and New Year Fusion absurdity

I can’t remember when it really started, but the Christmas and New Years Fusion in Istanbul got a rather accepted reality. We went to Nışantaşı and Teşvikiye, dropped by at a present fair at the military museum in Harbiye. All this Kitsch got adopted. Father Christmas is Noel Baba…..

Transformation of Taksim Square

The Taksim Square is a crazy mass since November 2012. It is hard to believe, that a commercial building in the shape of a Caserne in historism style is planned to replace Gezi Park. The Atatürk Cultural center shall get demolished. The government wishes to get applause for this plans from lots of their voters. To disregard the protests of so many people is a sign of an authoritarian government and a support of many followers as undemocratic as their leaders.

Mack the spook

And the spook, it has visions,
And it spreads them all around.
And it breeds all this creatures,
From a crowd of blind Believers

There are some hiding in darkness
while others are searching for light
And you see the ones in brightness
Those in darkness drop from sight.

The Atatürk Kültür Merkezi (AKM/Atatürk Cultural Center) was planned and build between 1946 and 1977 as a cultural hall to influence the direction for modern and contemporary culture in the country. Today competing interests struggle to shape AKM towards ideological lines based on their own visions. The reconstruction of the whole Taksim square is a partof the transformation of cultural symbolism.

Amazing that no one made the suggestion until now to build a memorial for the victims of bloody 1st of May 1977.

  • 1st of May 1977
  • Around 500.000 people followed a call of the Union DİSK
  • Towards the end of the meeting around 7pm unknown assassins startet shooting
  • 34 people were killed and 136 got injured

Also have a look at this post about an exhibition on the topic Atatürk Kültür merkezi:

http://www.inenart.eu/?p=3586

also related topic:

occupy Gezi Park: http://senseoftime.inenart.eu/?p=4108

Transformation of Pierre Loti: http://senseoftime.inenart.eu/?p=3135

Second Life in Ayvansaray: http://senseoftime.inenart.eu/?p=3414

Urban icons in Ayvansaray: http://senseoftime.inenart.eu/?p=3452

 

Sense of Time

Sense of Time is the first interactive module of the Cultural Internet Platform InEnArt.

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