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Yuksel Arslan - Painting A More Open Turkey

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  • Yuksel Arslan - Painting A More Open Turkey

    YUKSEL ARSLAN - PAINTING A MORE OPEN TURKEY
    Mark Van Yetter

    Global Arab Network
    http://www.english.globalarabnetwork.com/201007276694/Culture/yueksel-arslan-painting-a-more-open-turkey.html
    July 28 2010

    Istanbul, Turkey - Looking at the shape of the art world's character
    today, there is one aspect that clearly stands out. Modern art's
    trajectory, which remains centred in Northwestern Europe and the
    United States, is experiencing a shifting of axis. Countries long
    exempt from participation, such as Turkey, are eager to establish
    themselves as players in the art industry.

    Several art centres, museums and galleries of merit have opened
    their doors in Turkey over the last decade - and this trend seems
    to be growing. These institutions have done much to expose Turkey's
    tradition of modern art, centred in Istanbul.

    Notable among these include the art and cultural complex called
    Santral-Istanbul which recently held a magnificently curated
    retrospective of 76-year-old Turkish artist Yuksel Arslan. Living
    in self-imposed exile in Paris to avoid censorship of the socialist
    and satirist themes of his works, which focus on the working class,
    the artist returned to Turkey in 2009 for a seven-month show.

    In May 2010, a new gallery space, Rampa, hosted a large show of works
    by Cengiz Cekil, the artist credited with establishing conceptual
    art in Turkey, whose work reflects the political and social tensions
    before the 1980 military coup. Another gallery of note, BAS, recently
    featured a display of magazines and works by KORÄ°DOR, a group of
    artists who worked between 1988 and 1995. It is only now that many
    of these artists' works have been seen in mainstream outlets in Turkey.

    However, this movement is still small. Only recently have these forums
    for artistic cultivation and dissemination begun to appear as the
    Turkish public begins to embrace its artistic movements.

    Considering the greatest achievements in modern art in the West, it's
    obvious that artists who radically threatened established societal
    and cultural values were the ones who made the most important
    contributions.

    Western artists like Germany's Joseph Beuys, regarded as one of the
    most important artists of the 20th century, challenged the idea
    that art must be confined to the making of objects. He developed
    the idea of "social sculpture" and saw society itself as complicated
    artwork which everyone takes part in creating. For example, to raise
    eco-consciousness and social change, Beuys planted 7,000 oak trees in
    Kassel, Germany with the help of volunteers. A basalt stone accompanied
    each tree, collectively creating a sculpture entitled "7000 Oaks".

    Likewise, a group of Turkish artists and writers used modern art to
    challenge the murder of the Editor-in-Chief of the Turkish-Armenian
    newspaper Agos, Hrant Dink, a proponent of human rights. Creating a
    life-size work of art, the artists covered themselves in newspaper
    and lay down in the street where Dink was shot to protest his death
    and the controversy surrounding his newspaper's coverage of Turkish
    society's views on the Armenian deaths in 1915 by Ottoman forces.

    But to understand the recent interest in Turkish modern art, one must
    first examine the country's recent history.

    The last military coup in Turkey was in 1980. The military, which
    staunchly protects Turkey's secular political system, employed violent
    methods, such as threatening journalists and assassinating left-wing
    intellectuals in order to maintain the secular system during the years
    leading up to and following the 1980 coup. With no space to challenge
    the status quo, Turkey's modern art scene remained underground for
    a long time.

    Since the founding of the Republic, Turkish society has neither had
    the opportunity nor the outlet to be openly critical of the military
    state. The Republic continued the Ottoman programme of supporting art
    primarily as a tool to reinforce national sentiment. This is evident
    in the large number of commissioned portraits and statues of modern
    Turkey's founder, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.

    However, in part due to new policies related to Turkey's EU bid and
    greater global exposure through the Internet, the last decade has
    seen the emergence of a society more open to dialogue and debate
    about various social and political issues. Turkish society is now
    more willing to confront its brutal past. Topics that were never
    permitted to be discussed are now open for debate.

    Here I see the greatest hope for the emergence of a more open Turkish
    society, one that works towards a vibrant open future. And, thanks
    to an environment more conducive to open dialogue, there now appears
    a foundation for interesting Turkish modern art to flourish.

    Global Arab Network

    * Mark Van Yetter is an artist and Director of Marquise Dance Hall,
    an independent art space in Istanbul. This article was written for
    the Common Ground News Service (CGNews).




    From: A. Papazian
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