Emre Hüner’s solo exhibition [ELEKTROİZOLASYON]: Unknown Parameter Extro-Record brings together new works created around a semi-fictional script. Hüner releases the script from its function and repositions it as a mediating device among different media, such as film, novel, and architecture, proposing an open method of production, a process of scriptwriting rather than reaching a conclusive outcome. Curated by Aslı Seven, the exhibition is on view until 5 December 2021.
As a concept, [Elektroizolasyon] suggests an infrastructural techno-subjectivity that manifests itself in the exhibition through repetitions and differences in material and scale, and generates fictional narratives, works of art and monstrosities while trying to bind together the artificial and the biological, the mechanical and the organic. As infinite lists sorted with an encyclopaedic impulse meet the polymorphic system of the 3D printer, an idea of craftsmanship arises in between the artist’s glazing experiments and the improvisational practices of the mechanic, the plumber and the electrician.
The sculptures, installations, photo-etchings, silkscreen prints, film and texts that we encounter in the exhibition reflect a performative production process that relies on improvisation and moves across disciplines. Forms multiplied and reproduced through the aesthetic gestures of recording, documenting, citing, moulding and duplicating across the surfaces of the objects and the textual domain, the exhibition space and the spaces of the film, propose a speculative world-building in which the object’s potential status as a work of art, a prototype, a tool, a trace or an agent are simultaneously active.
[ELEKTROİZOLASYON]: Unknown Parameter Extro-Record examines the relational space stretched between the two poles of tension that define the experience of modernity as a bipolar one: the phenomena of conductivity and contamination, and those of encapsulation and confinement. Body parts, machinery, altered states of consciousness, industrial waste, architectural cross-sections, prosthetic implants, semiotic play and speculative terms, vehicles of construction and demolition, categories of knowledge and profession, and samples of non-human species are all deployed on the same plane of plasticity, where they keep record of each other, mimic each other and reproduce by copying one another. Throughout the exhibition, while forms referencing closed-world architectures of the factory, laboratory, film-set, and settlement call out for a sterile and science-fictional estrangement, the black and white film sequences, sound elements and sculptures carry the subterranean murmurs, familiar archetypes and residual bodies of the urban texture surrounding the museum building into the exhibition space.
As a semiotic machine, [Elektroizolasyon] constantly documents the process and context of its own making and secretes new layers and scales of reflexivity that appropriate and transform every new form and medium it touches into a new orbit around its core.
Emre Hüner
Working with drawing, video, sculpture and installation, Emre Hüner’s practice focuses on constructed narratives and eclectic assemblages which explore the subjects of utopia, archaeology, and ideas of progress and future through the re-imagination of architectural entities and speculations on the materiality of organic and artificial forms.
The artist’s recent solo exhibitions include Neochronophobiq (Protocinema, New York and STUK, Leuven, 2017), Hypabyssal (Marso Gallery, Mexico City, 2016), Floating Cabin Rider Capsule Reactor Cycle (CCA Kitakyushu, 2015), and Aeolian (RODEO, Istanbul, 2013). Hüner’s works also took part in various group exhibitions, including CMD P for 2079 (Allard Pierson Museum, Amsterdam, 2020), Further Thoughts on Earthy Materials (Kunsthaus Hamburg, 2018), Planet 9 (Kunsthalle Darmstadt, 2017), 14th Istanbul Biennial (2015), and Manifesta 9 (2012).
Hüner attended Brera Academy of Fine Arts in Milan and participated in artist residencies at Artpace San Antonio (Texas, 2019), AGA LAB (Amsterdam, 2019), Frans Masereel Centrum (Kasterlee, 2017), ISCP (New York, 2014), Princeton University (2010), the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten (Amsterdam, 2010), Apexart (New York, 2009), and at the Platform Garanti Contemporary Art Center (Istanbul, 2009). The artist lives and works in Istanbul and Amsterdam.
Aslı Seven
Aslı Seven is an independent curator and writer based between Istanbul and Paris. Her research and curatorial projects focus on infrastructural and intangible forms of violence embodied within landscape and built environment, with an emphasis on fieldwork, ficto-criticism and collaborative artistic processes as generative methods towards healing, caring and community building.
Seven obtained a doctoral degree in Artistic Research from ENSA Bourges and EESI Poitiers-Angouleme in 2019. Since 2014, she has collaborated as a curator and writer with Arter, Protocinema, Pi Artworks, Galerist and Bilsart in Istanbul, and CNAC Magasin (Grenoble) and Galerie La Box (Bourges) in France. A member of AICA Turkey and a collaborator of ICI (Independent Curators International), Aslı Seven participated in the ICI Curatorial Intensive, held in Manila, Philippines, with the support of the SAHA Association in 2016. In 2020, she was the recipient of a CNAP and Cité des Arts grant and residency in Paris.
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Arter welcomes visitors from 11 am to 5 pm between Tuesday and Saturday with the necessary health and safety measures in place. With the support of our Corporate Sponsor Tüpraş, admission to Arter exhibitions is free for all visitors on Thursdays; Arter Together members and visitors 24 and under also receive free admission to exhibitions at all times. Arter Library, Arter Bookstore, Bistro by Divan, the backyard, and the exhibition at Gallery 0 welcome visitors free of charge anytime during visiting hours. With the kind support of our Transportation Sponsors Ford Otosan and Otokar, free shuttle service is available from Taksim and Tepebaşı. Arter shuttles continue to operate at a 50% seating capacity to comply with social distancing measures.
For further information: arter.org.tr
Irmak Cad. No: 13 Dolapdere,
Beyoğlu 34435 İstanbul
+90 212 708 58 00
Content courtesy of the organizer.
Photo credits: Emre Hüner
Anoxic Event (fragment)
2021
Polyurethane, epoxy resin, silicone, ceramics,
3D print, iron, paint, various materials
300 x 310 x 600 cm
Photo: Hadiye Cangökçe
