Surplus

REM Art Space

03.06. – 03.07.2016

Ever since I started buying artworks, the artists in our country, who have been in a constant struggle to create continuously, have been modern Don Quixotes for me. They were the protagonists of a tale who followed the call from deep within and persistently went on expressing their states of mind despite all hardships.

It is particularly the process of young artist ‘creating themselves’ which proves to be one of the most difficult periods, if not an insurmountable one, in a country like ours where concepts of ‘art’ and ‘artist’ haven’t still found a sound basis and remained far from support and recognition. It is Support art ist‘s foremost aim to provide financial support and creative motivation for the artists throughout this challenging period of their life and enable them to continue their creative process. A preoccupation with financial matters as dictated by everyday life may, sometimes, shadow creative production and prevent new works to be created.

All of the artists in this exhibition are going through a process of ‘creating themselves’ and are naturally engaged in works out of their artistic profession to overcome this period without becoming commercialized. They strive to make their artistic output possible and keep their creative spirit alive and strong. I am talking about artists who prefer not to mention the other things they have to do to make a living when talking about artistic practices.

The exhibition Surplus has found its theme when this challenge the artists have to face has come out to be a common problem. It features works, which the artists had to produce without adding an artistic input but revisited for this exhibition to a new dimension. Taking another look on the works they produced and chose to forget, the artists endeavor to face what they had done, release the tension between their dual identities, reconcile these identities by building bridges.

For this exhibition, which, I hope, will be a step forward in their careers, Alican Durbaş reinterprets the simple and static stock videos he uses as an assistant director. Begüm Yamanlar joins with a video work that wasn’t used on a commercial project she took part because it was too abstract. Beril Gür takes part with a video and a photograph that represents the state of alienation and senselessness she felt while shooting for commercial purposes. Eren Sulamacı shows a work composed of road images that he had taken to ease for the inquisitive and restless state of mind while traveling for works out of  his artistic practice. Neslihan Koyuncu shoots wedding videos to support her artistic production and tries to reconcile these two contradicting careers in this exhibition. Özge Topçu used to work at a science center to support her master’s degree studies where she was performing simple chemical experiments for children. For Surplus she performs them one last time and for the first time, she doesn’t feel that she has to push her artistic call while making these experiments.

Surplus unveils the concerns of its artists and the generation they represent which we all know but can not actually see.

Support art ist would like to thank REM Art Space for providing a space for the project.

 

Zülal Ulusan

Support art ist