Plato Sanat opened with Simulation Crisis (Bayraktar, Erdenli) exhibition for 2012. The show presents works of the contemporary artists Kerem Ozan Bayraktar and Orhun Erdenli. Using different media like photography, video, painting and sculpture, the artists will exhibit pieces that review the current state of society by discussing its believe in images, which often are based on simulated realities.
: Simulation Crisis (Bayraktar, Erdenli) is the first exhibition in a series of shows called Positions, where Plato Sanat will present contemporary artists, which form important aesthetical and conceptual positions within our local art scene.
In Simulation Crisis (Bayraktar, Erdenli),Ozan Kerem Bayraktar exhibits photo and video works that aim at reviewing our world from an alternative angle using illusion and simulation. His pieces contain multiple references, where he draws connections to various layers of our first and second realities. Orhun Erdenli exhibits large photorealistic paintings and a series of machine-like objects that are built according to the aesthetic of Steam Punk. In both, his paintings and objects, the artist questions postmodern man’s need for believe, hope and simulation, where we all try to give meaning to the disastrous state of our existence.
The Knowledge Series 3: Recollection is the last part in an exhibition triptych at Plato Art Space, which discusses art’s relationship with the production, mediation and recollection of knowledge.
The Knowledge Series 3: Recollection focuses on the communication, distribution and transformation of knowledge. The exhibition circles around issues like personal and cultural memory, subjective and objective reminiscence as well as private and public history. As we are permanently overfilled by all kinds of textual and visual information, the understanding of the creation and distribution of knowledge is of great importance for us. The artists prove that it is possible to overcome the classic methods of recollecting knowledge and get beyond the borders of the models that shape our popularised social and cultural memory.
For supporting this conceptual goal, The Knowledge Series 3 proposes an alternative exhibition structure as it has a process-orientated character that accepts change as one of its fundamental parameters. It gives the opportunity to see the works from the two previous exhibitions in the form of an archive. By acting so, it formally and conceptually reacts to the production, mediation and recollection of knowledge, which always adjusts itself to the flux of life, where nothing gets lost, but everything gets transformed.
Artists: Bandrolsüz, Genco Gülan, Konsortium, Özlem Sulak Curator: Marcus Graf
THE KNOWLEDGE SERIES 2: MEDIATION
22 June - 14 September 2011
The Knowledge Series 2: Mediation is the second exhibition in a series of three at Plato Sanat, which discuss the relationship between art and the production, mediation and (re-)collection of knowledge. After our first show that discussed art as an alternative to the traditional way for gaining insight in our world, The Knowledge Series 2: Mediation focuses on the distribution and transformation of knowledge.
The artists of The Knowledge Series 2: Mediation show alternative strategies for sharing their thoughts about the world. Engin Gerçek reveals, in his between documentary and fiction shifting photo series Gentlemen of Gentrification, domestic realities behind apartment walls in Kustepe that discuss various layers of reality and the clichés we have about it. Ardan Özmenoğlu’s works in the exhibition deconstruct cultural memory, political promises and communication methods used on the streets of Istanbul. Jenny Eichler transfers knowledge of traditional craft to the production of contemporary art works, which through the use of imitation and kitsch form a critical analysis of cultural behaviours. Atılkunst uses guerrilla tactics for reaching its audience and proposes production as well as exhibiting techniques for being able to create art independently.
Artists: Atılkunst, Jenny Eichler, Engin Gerçek, Ardan Özmenoğlu Curator: Marcus Graf
THE KNOWLEDGE SERIES 1: PRODUCTION
27 April - 6 June 2011
The Knowledge Series No. 1: Production is the first exhibition in a series of three at Plato Art Space, which discuss the relationship between art and the production, mediation and (re-)collection of knowledge.
The Knowledge Series’ exhibition structure and design is process-orientated. With this project, Plato Art Space proposes an alternative exhibition model to the common practice: the last day of one exhibition will be the opening of the following one. Consequently, as the finissages and vernissages are on the same day, the construction and production processes of the exhibitions will be visible.
The exhibition also reacts to the formal and conceptual contexts resulting from its integration in Plato College of Higher Education. The students walk through Plato Art Space gallery hundreds of times, spend time there, hence visiting an art exhibition becomes an everyday matter for them. Art can be an alternative instrument for reviewing the world, where the exhibition space can function as a kind of open laboratory.
Regeneration is a process closely connected to renewal and rebirth as well as the regrow of lost or damaged parts of a system. In our exhibition, it refers to the translocation of Net Art works from the virtual space of the Web Biennial to the real one of Plato Sanat. Regeneration.011 presents local and international artists from four Web Biennials (webbiennial.org) since 2003. The exhibition deals with freedom of speech and anti-war activism as well as personal stories in order to reveal the social-political engagement and the poetical sides of contemporary net art.
Like our cultural and social evolution, art exists in a state of a permanent flux, where the change of topics, concepts, forms and strategies is faster everyday. For the last ten years, digital art and especially net based art became an important field within the art world. Regeneration.011 creates a powerful impact on the senses of the visitors in order to present Net Art being embedded in a social experience of the visitor of the exhibition. As all pieces are live on-line and therefore streamed in real-time, the spectator is directly integrated in the creation of the exhibition’s digital works in cyber-space.
Artists: Immo Blaese, Magda Bielesz, Alan Bigelow, Andrew Chee, Martin John Callanan, Andy Deck, Dimitrios Fotiou, Matthias Fritsch, Genco Gülan, Ellie Harrison, Sachiko Hayashi, Anni Holm, Aonghus Kneeshaw, Carderelli Luigia, Marcello Mercado, Alexander Mouton, Christian Rupp, Evelyn Stermitz, Jürgen Trautwein, Merve Ünsal, Nanette Wylde, Jody Zellen, Ricardo Miranda Zuniga
Web Biennial Founder: Genco Gülan / Curator: Marcus Graf
İLHAN KOMAN: HULDA FESTIVAL; A JOURNEY TO ART AND SCIENCE
22 September – 31 October 2010
Famous Turkish sculptor İlhan Koman’s boat Hulda arrives in İstanbul, its final destination, after its long journey which began in Stockholm. Hulda was both Koman’s home and studio during his residence in Stockholm.
The exhibition consists of the photographs and videos from Hulda’s journey, 10 original sculptures such as Whirlpool and Dervish by İlhan Koman and a video –dedicated to İlhan Koman- by young artist Candaş Şişman. The photographs and videos are from the cities Hulda visited during its journey -Stockholm, Amsterdam, Bordeaux, Lisbon, Barcelona, Naples, Malta, Thessalonica and İstanbul. The exhibition in Plato Art Space is also the final leg of the activities of Hulda Festival (www.huldafestival.org).
The exhibition is also undertaking the mission of building a bridge between young generation artists and Koman by presenting Candaş Şişman’s work. Şişman’s video Flux is influenced by Koman’s sculptures (Pi, Moebius, Whirlpool and Ogre) and is dedicated to İlhan Koman’s inspiring art. The video has a sound design which is also inspired by the materials of Koman’s sculptures and is produced by Candaş Şişman.
The exhibition is curated by Yıldırım Arıcı and accompanied by a reader (published by Plato College of Higher Education) and it is featuring texts by Çetin Kanra, Aykut Köksal, Abidin Dino, Ferit Edgü, Burcu Beşlioğlu and a poem by Oktay Rıfat.
POSTCAPITAL ARCHIVE (1989-2001) / DANIEL GARCIA ANDUJAR
21 April – 27 June 2010
Plato Art Space opened its doors to audience with Daniel García Andújar’s project Postcapital.Archive 1989-2001, on April 21, 2010. The project functions as a multimedia installation and open databank which is based on a digital archive of over 250,000 documents such as texts, audio files, and videos from the Internet compiled by the artist over the past ten years. Postcapital addresses social, political, economic, and cultural worldwide changes over the last two decades in between two important moments as 1989 fall of the Berlin Wall and the attacks on September 11, 2001.
Postcapital is an attempt at reading the complex and divergent realities of the 21st century by virtue of their forms of representation. The project explores both the transformations of capitalist societies and the shifting of their urban loci of power. Postcapital alludes less to the utopias of a vanquished capitalism than to those upheavals affecting all areas of life that are both spawned and exacted by the networked age of information. In view of contemporary information and storage media, knowledge is, according to the artist’s theory, no longer acquired by visiting archives but rather through life in the networked archives. Thus, an essential role is inherent in the interpretation of information. In this sense, Postcapital is an open model for traversing archives, as metaphorical as it is practical and implementable. www.postcapital.org
Postcapital Archive 1989-2001 is curated by Başak Şenova and accompanied by a series of talks and a reader published by Plato College of Higher Education.
Consumption of Popular Visual Culture / Orhun Erdenli / 2012
Expressive Methods and Sense of Humour in Art / Ardan Özmenoğlu / 2011
New Survival Strategies of Contemporary Art / Doç. Marcus Graf / 2011
Net-art: New Possibilities and Problems / 2011
ALTERNATIVE ECONOMICS, ALTERNATIVE SOCIETIES / Oliver Ressler / 2010
NET-CAPİTAL / POST-CAPİTAL: THE İSTANBUL NODE / Özgür Uçan / 2010
TRANSFORMING INFORMATION INTO KNOWLEDGE / Daniel Garcia Andújar / 2010
NET SANATINA BAKIŞ: YENİ OLANAKLAR / SORUNLAR
Andrej Tisma, Marcus Graf, Bager Akbay, Andy Deck, Genco Gülan, Dimitris Fotiou 21 MART 2011
Panel, Net Sanatı’nın günümüzdeki ve gelecekteki olası durumunu gözden geçirmek adına çeşitli kavramsal ve biçimsel boyutları tartışma ve paylaşma zemini oluşturmayı amaçlıyor. Katılımcılar Net Sanatı’nın politik ve şiirsel özelliklerini toplumların görsel kültürlerini - sanat ve tasarım anlayışları arasındaki ilişkiyi ele inceliyorlar. Panel aynı zamanda Rejenerasyon.011: Web Bienali Seçkisi sergisine (Plato Sanat, 20 Ocak-21 Mart 2011) paralel düzenlenen etkinlikler arasında yer alıyor.
ALTERNATIVE ECONOMICS, ALTERNATIVE SOCIETIES
Oliver Ressler 2 June 2010
After the breakdown of real-existing socialism it was said that there were no alternatives to capitalism. Without a counter-model to the dominating system alternative concepts for economic and social development face hard times. In the industrial nations, after 1989/1991 broadly discussed are only those “alternatives” that do not question the existing power relations of the capitalist system and parliamentary representative democracies. Other socio-economic approaches struggle with the stigma of the utopian and are excluded from serious discussion, if even considered at all. Astonishingly, this does not even change in times of deep economic crises.
Supported by: Avusturya Kültür Ofisi
NET-CAPİTAL / POST-CAPİTAL: THE İSTANBUL NODE
Özgür Uçan 6 May 2010
Daniel García Andújar’s web-based archive-process installation Postcapital is a glance at the paradigm of “Global Network Capitalism” and “after capitalism” based on the dates corresponding to the falls of the Berlin Wall (1989) and the Twin Towers (2001). It is also an indicator of the aftermath of Capitalism’s ‘network state’ through the antagonistic relationship between competition and cooperation, dominance and participation. A major holder of capital, the voice of Istanbul also comes through in this narrative as one of the big nodes within the network topology of Capital.
TRANSFORMING INFORMATION INTO KNOWLEDGE
Daniel Garcia Andújar 21 April 2010
Postcapital Archive views itself as an ongoing process for reflecting and practicing participatory ways of knowledge production and collaborative communication. In this context, today’s information politics —ranging from open-source attitudes to new laws for intellectual property, as well as new forms of censorship— prove to be as significant for discussion as questions of representation. Social co-operation unveils its power of innovation and creation, and is regarded as the best means of supporting a model that permits distribution and expansion of content for participants, users and audiences. Art also has a political function necessitating ethical positions: aesthetics is not enough. Those who follow exclusively commercial and institutional models and practices may deem all this irrelevant, but they must learn to accept this implies being anchored to traditional models radically different from those most likely to prevail —and should note that digital space has not emerged simply as a means that favors communication, but as a new space for a wide range of operations. And this is clearly a disputed space, the interests of which challenge their old hierarchies.
POPÜLER GÖRSEL KÜLTÜR TÜKETİMİ
Orhun Erdenli 15 Mart 2012
Simülasyon krizi (Bayraktar, Erdenli) sergisine katılan genç Artistsdan Orhun Erdenli, sergide yer alan yapıtları bağlamında popüler görsel kültür tüketimi üzerine 15 Mart 2012’de bir söyleşi yaptı.
MİZAH, TEKNİK ve ANLATIM BİÇİMLERİ
Ardan Özmenoğlu 14 Nisan 2011
Bilgi Dizisi 2: Paylaşım sergisine katılan Artistsdan Ardan Özmenoğlu, eserlerindeki mizah anlayışını, işlerinde kullandığı anlatım tarzlarını ve materyallerin kavramsal açıdan kesiştikleri noktaları izleyici ile paylaştı.
GÜNCEL SANATIN HAYATTA KALMA STRATEJİLERİ
Doç. Marcus Graf 8 Nisan 2011
Plato Sanat Curatorü ve Yeditepe Üniversitesi Sanat Yönetimi Bölümü Öğretim Üyesi Doç. Marcus Graf, görsel kültürdeki enformasyon bombardımanı karşısında, günümüz Artistsının seyirciye ulaşabilmek için uyguladığı hayatta kalma stratejilerini anlattı.
Plato Art Space is an exhibition space for contemporary art. Initiated by T.C. Plato College for Higher Education in April 2010, it is situated in Balat campus. The art space targets both the art audience and the institutions’ own students –studying art, design and communication. As all exhibitions and performances are a daily routine of their practice, the space inherently serves as an open laboratory of observation, research and allocation. Furthermore, Plato Art Space encourages production of contemporary artworks, supports young upcoming artists and focuses on new presentation techniques. The gallery space also acts as a supplementary role in all exhibition designs.
Plato Art Space Director
Aysegul Çinici Yazıcı aysegulyazici@platosanat.org.tr
