From the organizer:
After 40 years of exhibitions with more than 200 local and international artists, Maçka Art Gallery (MAG) bid farewell to art lovers five years ago, but now, with the joint decision of Rabia Çapa and her daughter Didem Çapa, to whom she handed on the gallery, it returns with a collaborative exhibition by artist and academic Serhat Kiraz and computer programmer and artist Hakan Gündüz, titled ‘Moment/An’. The exhibition will remain open at MAG from 16 November to 18 December, 2021.
Founded in 1976 by Rabia Çapa and her sister, Varlık Yalman Sadıkoğlu, who passed away in 1989, at a modern building on Mim Kemal Öke Street in the Maçka neighbourhood of Istanbul, Maçka Art Gallery (MAG) bid farewell to art lovers in 2016, 40 years after its foundation, following Rabia Çapa’s decision.
MAG was founded on an 80 m2 space, with contributions by Architect Mehmet Konuralp, winner of the Sinan Award, lighting designer Şazi Sirel and graphic designer and painter Mengü Ertel. Following the decision to end its activities, the gallery transferred its archive to the Vehbi Koç Foundation, and founder Rabia Çapa and art historian and critic Dr.Necmi Sönmez, for both archives and the general reader, edited a book titled ‘Görünmeyene Bakmak/Looking at the Invisible’, documenting the institution’s history of more than 200 exhibitions.
Now, five years after its closing, MAG, with the joint decision of Rabia Çapa and her daughter Didem Çapa, to whom she has handed on the gallery, once again takes its place on the art agenda with ‘Moment/An’, a collaborative exhibition by an artist who has contributed to the history of contemporary art in Turkey, academic Serhat Kiraz and computer programmer and artist Hakan Gündüz.
The works in the exhibition invite viewers to a vast experience regarding the concept of time, which is consolidated with the visual impact of the raw ceramic tiles measuring 10 x 10 cm used by Architect Konuralp and the characteristic interior and exterior design, thus transforming the institution into a physical and metaphysical graph-notebook.
With the Moment/An project, Kiraz and Gündüz combine physical, conceptual, acoustic, visual and personal interpretations of time, which render, via labour, awareness and property, the existence of humanity computable, obtainable, questionable and expendable via different disciplines. The duo consolidates and opens to discussion, on a conceptual and experiential platform, both the past, present and future within the scope pf the historical ‘moment’ and ‘space’ at MAG.
Formed of historical wall clocks, electronic cogwheel arrangements, sundials and digital and visual installations, ‘Moment/An’ gains its true dynamic with the inclusion of the viewer. Enriched with experience design and references to the history of the space, the virtual, psychological and sensory intervention added to space and time, both by Kiraz, who opened three solo exhibitions at 1984, 1993 and 2007 and by New Media artist Hakan Gündüz, renders and records this as a project with brand new dimensions.
AICA Turkey member and independent journalist, writer Evrim Altuğ also contributes with his reading of the exhibition titled, “‘Memento’graph – An Epistle of Keepsakes”.
APPENDIX:
Artist Biographies:
SERHAT KİRAZ b.1954, Turkey. Kiraz graduated from the Department of Painting at the State Fine Arts Academy, 1973-1979. He made an unconventional start to his journey as a young artist for that period, taking part in 1977, in the Balkan Countries Plastic Arts Exhbition, an exhibition in Stuttgart in 1979 and the XI. Paris Biennial in 1980. Since the first works he produced in 1977-1978 as a founding member of Sanat Tanımı Topluluğu/The Definition of Art Group (S.T.T.) he has visualized the work of art not only as an object of perception, but also as a philosophical object. He brought together his paintings, drawings, photographs and various sources of light, the analytical outcome of a philosophy of art that states, “However complex and plural cultures may be, they are borne out of a single source, the human mind and imagination, and therefore, they must be assessed as a whole” within a geometric, balanced, measured and rational installation structure. Kiraz worked as a member of the teaching staff of Yıldız Technical University (Y.T.Ü.) from 1999 to 2006 and has held and taken part in many solo and group exhibitions since 1978. Kiraz continues to work in Istanbul.
HAKAN GÜNDÜZ b.1977, Germany. Gündüz studied physics, specializing in computer visualization, real-time computer graphics, human-computer interaction and machine learning. He continues to develop works based on an artistic assessment of new techniques in the computer sciences. The artist’s recent projects include:
Artifact, Interactive Installation, Maçka Art Gallery, ArtContact Istanbul, Istanbul, 2021
In Pieces (with Mert Kızılay), Interactive Installation, Plugin – Contemporary Istanbul, 2021
Arkhe, joint project of DECOL and Nohlab, Interactive Installation, Alibaba Design Week, Hangzhou, 2021
Artifact 2.0, Interactive Installation, Goetzendaemmerung, Haus der Kunst, Munich, 2020
Human Colony, Interactive Web Software, Web Biennial Aperion 2020, webbiennial.org
Artifact:Faces, Video, Simulacra, metaspace.decol.tv, 2020
Artifact:Faces, Digital Print, Video Installation, Solo Exhibition, Mixer Art Gallery, Istanbul, 2020
Arkhe, joint project of DECOL and Nohlab, Interactive Installation, Kristal Elma Awards, Istanbul, 2020
Arkhe, joint project of DECOL and Nohlab, Interactive Installation, Plugin – Contemporary Istanbul, Istanbul, 2019
Artifact, Interactive Installation, Innovation Week Group Exhibition, Lütfi Kırdar Congress Centre, Istanbul, 2019
Haraka, with Hazal Döleneken, Interactive Installation, Heterotopia, REM Art Space, Istanbul, 2017
Human Colony, Interactive Installation, Amber Art and Technology Festival, Energy Museum, Istanbul, 2015
For detailed information and audio-visual contributions, please contact us:
Maçka Sanat Galerisi / Maçka Art Gallery
Mim Kemal Öke Caddesi 31/A
Maçka 34367 Istanbul – Turkey
Tel: +90 212 240 80 23 – Mobile: +0545 477 2676
e-mail: mackasanatgalerisi@ttmail.com
Web site: www.mackasanatgalerisi.com
Content courtesy of the organizer.
