for more information (now only in turkish):http://umut-guzel-sey.blogspot.com/
“Hope is a good thing”
Place:AtelierFrankfurt
Dates: 25.08.2007_22.09.2007
Opening: 24.08.2007
Artists: Alice Miceli, Esra Okyay, Halil Vurucuoglu, Jari Silomaki, Mehmet Dere, Nejat Sati, Runo Lagomarsino, Underscene Project (Merve Sendil )
Curator: Borga Kantürk
AtelierFrankfurt is pleased to present “Hope is a Good thing” the group exhibition curated by Borga Kantürk with 7 artists and one collobration, named Underscene project with a post-punk band “DDR” from Turkey. Turkish artists Esra Okyay, Halil Vurucuoglu, Mehmet Dere, Nejat Sati and Underscene Project, produced(featured) by Merve Sendil all from K2 artists initiative in Izmir. And the other artists Alice Miceli (Brazil-Rio De Janerio) Jari Silomaki (Finland-Helsinki) and Runo Lagomarsino (Sweden-Malmo)
Due to the interactive speed of the present world, the acceleration of contemporary art has also increased. Today, a contemporary artist is perceived as a person, with numerous communication and networking skills, struggling inside a fast and global art net. This system, in which the contemporary artist has to negotiate intense schedules and loaded agendas, creates a chaos accompanied by long trips and difficult demands. Such things as workshops, presentations, lectures, studio visits, artist residency programs, online conferences, etc. help to create this atmosphere of pace. You can either be the lucky but tired person, who achieves good contacts and sponsorships in this tense climate; or you can have a position in the back yard of the system, out of sight, with an independent stance where you have to build your own contacts and find your own budget.
When Beuys said “Jeder ist ein Künstler” ("Every man is an artist") the world was promising a new hope with its dynamic political and social infrastructure. Art would accompany this acceleration and bring with it a new energy. Todays hectic pace and lifestyle has seriously diminished this sense of hope that once existed. Today's ideals attract more the hope of enterprise and further financial gain. Hope has been replaced by greed. Parallel with this the art community exists within a tighter global network, with more stringent time constraints encapsulating a larger audience. It can be said that art is increasingly drawing closer to becoming a corporate entity. It is time to quote Kippenberger’s, more humanistic expression, “All the artists are human beings” as a direct alternative to Beuys' remark. So going back to Beuys statement the “artist=human figure/myth” notion we see that the world of art is becoming more corporatised and turning into a highly rated market object, a commodity worthy of higher accolade.
Within the course of contemporary art and the endeavors of artists to position themselves in the system, we need to discuss alternative strategies questioning the global net of the contemporary art market; and try to focus on a situation that can liberate artists and give them more independence. In this sense the word “hope” in the title of the exhibition is used as a necessary notion to represent what is human. The artists’ choices, their independent existences, and their personal, textual, verbal and visual languages has been taken into account during the very process of the exhibition. The purpose is to release the artist entity from the process of being an 'illustrator' and view the artist as an “illusion producer”; as well as focusing on the framework represented by the artists and to consider the relationships between sound, image and atmosphere.
Borga Kanturk, August 2007
