The most comprehensive exhibition of Cengiz Çekil (1945-2015), considered one of the pioneer artists of conceptual art in Turkey, continues at Arter until 24th September. Curated by Eda Berkmen and spread over the two floors of Arter, the exhibition features the artist’s works from different periods, some of which are on view for the first time. Çekil’s works draw on universal issues that shape people’s lives, such as death, time and energy, as well as politics, media and religion. The exhibition title, I Am Still Alive, is inspired by the artist's work 'Diary' (1976), which forms part of MoMA's collection. For this work, Çekil stamps the phrase ‘I AM STILL ALIVE’ diagonally on a notebook every day with the dates for two months and completes the work by stamping the phrase ‘I AM GOING TO THE ARMY' on the last page of the notebook on the day he was going to join the army. The work alludes to the political instability and polarization as well as the economic difficulties, prohibitions and oppression in Turkey in the 1970s, and shows that life continues despite all odds.
Known for his ability to always create possibilities within impossibilities, Çekil was born and raised in 1945 in the Bor district of Niğde, located in the Central Anatolia Region of Turkey. The views and way of life of his father had a great influence on the artist; within the limited possibilities of life in the town, his father's ability to produce creative solutions with used materials spread to Çekil, and he started to produce toys with everyday materials from an early age. This practical creativity and manual dexterity, which existed from an early age, laid the groundwork for Çekil's ideas about becoming an artist. After graduating from Gazi University in Ankara, a school established with the mission of training educators in different disciplines of art, he worked as a primary school teacher in the province of Van in the Eastern Anatolia Region of Turkey, before traveling to Paris in 1970 to study for his second degree.
During his stay in Paris, Çekil had the opportunity to establish close ties with conceptual art, and was greatly influenced by Minimalism, Arte Povera, New Realism and the Fluxus movement. His professor Etienne Martin and artists such as Marcel Duchamp and Joseph Beuys were among his other sources of inspiration. In Paris, the artist entered a period in which he began to use objects by detaching them from their contexts and also to think about concepts such as matter, heat and energy.
In this exhibition, the first work encountered is Obsession, which consists of a pencil case with an open mouth in the centre of a wooden frame and linen threads resembling a spider web around it. The leather pencil case, which forms the focus of the work and resembles the female genitalia, signifies the excitement of the act of creation as well as the attraction of discovery, while the threads surrounding it create a tense appearance resembling a dangerous trap. With this work, Çekil establishes an analogy between sexuality and reproduction by associating the pleasure of reproduction with a sexual object, revealing the mysterious side of reproduction and drawing attention to the dangerous and tense aspects of this act.
Another work that draws attention with its use of ready-made objects is the installation Towards Childhood, Since Childhood, located in the next room. Made by the artist while he was studying in Paris, the work was shown for the first time at Çekil's debut solo exhibition in Paris, Réorganisation pour une exposition [Reorganisation for an Exhibition], held in 1975 on the ground floor of a bar called Le Métronome. The artwork consists of twelve Coca-Cola bottles arranged in rows of four. For the work, Çekil places light bulbs in the mouths of the bottles and illuminates them with batteries in the base of the bottles. He also fixes the bottles on wooden sticks with tape and ropes, giving them the appearance of sleds. This work, in which we can see the influence of Beuys in formal and intellectual terms, was made in 1974 when the Vietnam War was nearing its end. With this artwork Çekil was inspired by the creative tactics used by North Vietnam against the Americans within very limited possibilities, inspiring him to arrange the Coca-Cola bottles, the symbol of America's cultural and economic imperialism, in a manner that resembles a Molotov cocktail or explosive.
The political context in Turkey and the world, as well as its reflections on himself and society, are among the important qualities that characterise Çekil's works. Reflecting the testimony of the period he lived through in his works, Çekil is also known for his critical and ironic works from time to time. The artist has been subjected to political investigations many times, and frequently experienced the violent dimension of this. His work therefore responds to the corruptions of social structures with art and reflects the artist’s belief that art has a healing and transformative function. Produced in this context, the installation Smashed into Pieces (1998) is spread over a large area in the last room of the upper floor and consists of 288 moulds of different parts of the human body painted in yellow gilding. The installation, in which each body part is exhibited on a separate cloth and is organised as a square in its entirety, is reminiscent of the dismembered body parts scattered as a result of massacre. Pointing to the value and uniqueness of each human life as each limb is carefully painted with yellow gilding, through this installation, Çekil makes a gesture honouring human life, so frequently disregarded in mass action events.
In order to get to know the artist better, the video work Cengiz Çekil School (1995-2015) should be watched before going downstairs or at the end of the exhibition. Produced by Vahap Avşar, Çekil's student and now a well-known artist in his own right, the video consists of visual and audio recordings of interviews between Çekil and Avşar. Watching the 9-hour video viewers have the opportunity to witness Çekil's ideas in his own voice and image.
Mashallah, one of Çekil's works with critical and ironic tones, is located on the wall near the ceiling while descending the stairs. The word 'MAŞAALLAH' is written in both the Latin and Arabic alphabet, and utilises the colours of the evil eye beads, yellow, blue and white. Being an Arabic word ‘Mashallah’, which means ‘What Allah wishes happens, what He/She does not wish does not happen’ is interpreted as a critical point of view on the fatalistic approach of the Turkish people to phenomena, since the work was produced at a politically tense time during the 12 September coup of 1980 in Turkey.
The lower floor of the exhibition mainly includes works related to the concept of time; one of these works titled 1200 Watches consists of 1200 strapless wristwatches that Çekil collected from flea markets. All these watches, which are placed on a glass table, are attached to navy blue cardboards with silver threads and the artist's name and surname are written on each cardboard in his handwriting. Among all these piles of clocks that have run out of mechanical life, only one clock works and shows the correct time, which is noticed only by attentive visitors. In addition to its function of organising time as a quantitative measure in modern life, the concept of the clock as an object of remembrance and its relation to death has an important place in Çekil's artistic practice. Another reason for Çekil's interest in clocks is that his father, whom he values very much, was a clock repairman; the artist states that the more he works with clocks, the more he feels like he is spending time with his father.
As the title of the exhibition suggests, Çekil is still “alive” today through his works that are still up to date, and Arter’s exhibition stands as an unmissable opportunity to take a closer look at Çekil's brave and experimental 40 years of production.
Cengiz Çekil: I Am Still Alive is showing at Arter in Istanbul until 24th September
Make sure to collect your Yamos on the gowithYamo app when you visit!
The most comprehensive exhibition of Cengiz Çekil (1945-2015), considered one of the pioneer artists of conceptual art in Turkey, continues at Arter until 24th September. Curated by Eda Berkmen and spread over the two floors of Arter, the exhibition features the artist’s works from different periods, some of which are on view for the first time. Çekil’s works draw on universal issues that shape people’s lives, such as death, time and energy, as well as politics, media and religion. The exhibition title, I Am Still Alive, is inspired by the artist's work 'Diary' (1976), which forms part of MoMA's collection. For this work, Çekil stamps the phrase ‘I AM STILL ALIVE’ diagonally on a notebook every day with the dates for two months and completes the work by stamping the phrase ‘I AM GOING TO THE ARMY' on the last page of the notebook on the day he was going to join the army. The work alludes to the political instability and polarization as well as the economic difficulties, prohibitions and oppression in Turkey in the 1970s, and shows that life continues despite all odds.
Known for his ability to always create possibilities within impossibilities, Çekil was born and raised in 1945 in the Bor district of Niğde, located in the Central Anatolia Region of Turkey. The views and way of life of his father had a great influence on the artist; within the limited possibilities of life in the town, his father's ability to produce creative solutions with used materials spread to Çekil, and he started to produce toys with everyday materials from an early age. This practical creativity and manual dexterity, which existed from an early age, laid the groundwork for Çekil's ideas about becoming an artist. After graduating from Gazi University in Ankara, a school established with the mission of training educators in different disciplines of art, he worked as a primary school teacher in the province of Van in the Eastern Anatolia Region of Turkey, before traveling to Paris in 1970 to study for his second degree.
During his stay in Paris, Çekil had the opportunity to establish close ties with conceptual art, and was greatly influenced by Minimalism, Arte Povera, New Realism and the Fluxus movement. His professor Etienne Martin and artists such as Marcel Duchamp and Joseph Beuys were among his other sources of inspiration. In Paris, the artist entered a period in which he began to use objects by detaching them from their contexts and also to think about concepts such as matter, heat and energy.
In this exhibition, the first work encountered is Obsession, which consists of a pencil case with an open mouth in the centre of a wooden frame and linen threads resembling a spider web around it. The leather pencil case, which forms the focus of the work and resembles the female genitalia, signifies the excitement of the act of creation as well as the attraction of discovery, while the threads surrounding it create a tense appearance resembling a dangerous trap. With this work, Çekil establishes an analogy between sexuality and reproduction by associating the pleasure of reproduction with a sexual object, revealing the mysterious side of reproduction and drawing attention to the dangerous and tense aspects of this act.
Another work that draws attention with its use of ready-made objects is the installation Towards Childhood, Since Childhood, located in the next room. Made by the artist while he was studying in Paris, the work was shown for the first time at Çekil's debut solo exhibition in Paris, Réorganisation pour une exposition [Reorganisation for an Exhibition], held in 1975 on the ground floor of a bar called Le Métronome. The artwork consists of twelve Coca-Cola bottles arranged in rows of four. For the work, Çekil places light bulbs in the mouths of the bottles and illuminates them with batteries in the base of the bottles. He also fixes the bottles on wooden sticks with tape and ropes, giving them the appearance of sleds. This work, in which we can see the influence of Beuys in formal and intellectual terms, was made in 1974 when the Vietnam War was nearing its end. With this artwork Çekil was inspired by the creative tactics used by North Vietnam against the Americans within very limited possibilities, inspiring him to arrange the Coca-Cola bottles, the symbol of America's cultural and economic imperialism, in a manner that resembles a Molotov cocktail or explosive.
The political context in Turkey and the world, as well as its reflections on himself and society, are among the important qualities that characterise Çekil's works. Reflecting the testimony of the period he lived through in his works, Çekil is also known for his critical and ironic works from time to time. The artist has been subjected to political investigations many times, and frequently experienced the violent dimension of this. His work therefore responds to the corruptions of social structures with art and reflects the artist’s belief that art has a healing and transformative function. Produced in this context, the installation Smashed into Pieces (1998) is spread over a large area in the last room of the upper floor and consists of 288 moulds of different parts of the human body painted in yellow gilding. The installation, in which each body part is exhibited on a separate cloth and is organised as a square in its entirety, is reminiscent of the dismembered body parts scattered as a result of massacre. Pointing to the value and uniqueness of each human life as each limb is carefully painted with yellow gilding, through this installation, Çekil makes a gesture honouring human life, so frequently disregarded in mass action events.
In order to get to know the artist better, the video work Cengiz Çekil School (1995-2015) should be watched before going downstairs or at the end of the exhibition. Produced by Vahap Avşar, Çekil's student and now a well-known artist in his own right, the video consists of visual and audio recordings of interviews between Çekil and Avşar. Watching the 9-hour video viewers have the opportunity to witness Çekil's ideas in his own voice and image.
Mashallah, one of Çekil's works with critical and ironic tones, is located on the wall near the ceiling while descending the stairs. The word 'MAŞAALLAH' is written in both the Latin and Arabic alphabet, and utilises the colours of the evil eye beads, yellow, blue and white. Being an Arabic word ‘Mashallah’, which means ‘What Allah wishes happens, what He/She does not wish does not happen’ is interpreted as a critical point of view on the fatalistic approach of the Turkish people to phenomena, since the work was produced at a politically tense time during the 12 September coup of 1980 in Turkey.
The lower floor of the exhibition mainly includes works related to the concept of time; one of these works titled 1200 Watches consists of 1200 strapless wristwatches that Çekil collected from flea markets. All these watches, which are placed on a glass table, are attached to navy blue cardboards with silver threads and the artist's name and surname are written on each cardboard in his handwriting. Among all these piles of clocks that have run out of mechanical life, only one clock works and shows the correct time, which is noticed only by attentive visitors. In addition to its function of organising time as a quantitative measure in modern life, the concept of the clock as an object of remembrance and its relation to death has an important place in Çekil's artistic practice. Another reason for Çekil's interest in clocks is that his father, whom he values very much, was a clock repairman; the artist states that the more he works with clocks, the more he feels like he is spending time with his father.
As the title of the exhibition suggests, Çekil is still “alive” today through his works that are still up to date, and Arter’s exhibition stands as an unmissable opportunity to take a closer look at Çekil's brave and experimental 40 years of production.
Cengiz Çekil: I Am Still Alive is showing at Arter in Istanbul until 24th September
Make sure to collect your Yamos on the gowithYamo app when you visit!
The most comprehensive exhibition of Cengiz Çekil (1945-2015), considered one of the pioneer artists of conceptual art in Turkey, continues at Arter until 24th September. Curated by Eda Berkmen and spread over the two floors of Arter, the exhibition features the artist’s works from different periods, some of which are on view for the first time. Çekil’s works draw on universal issues that shape people’s lives, such as death, time and energy, as well as politics, media and religion. The exhibition title, I Am Still Alive, is inspired by the artist's work 'Diary' (1976), which forms part of MoMA's collection. For this work, Çekil stamps the phrase ‘I AM STILL ALIVE’ diagonally on a notebook every day with the dates for two months and completes the work by stamping the phrase ‘I AM GOING TO THE ARMY' on the last page of the notebook on the day he was going to join the army. The work alludes to the political instability and polarization as well as the economic difficulties, prohibitions and oppression in Turkey in the 1970s, and shows that life continues despite all odds.
Known for his ability to always create possibilities within impossibilities, Çekil was born and raised in 1945 in the Bor district of Niğde, located in the Central Anatolia Region of Turkey. The views and way of life of his father had a great influence on the artist; within the limited possibilities of life in the town, his father's ability to produce creative solutions with used materials spread to Çekil, and he started to produce toys with everyday materials from an early age. This practical creativity and manual dexterity, which existed from an early age, laid the groundwork for Çekil's ideas about becoming an artist. After graduating from Gazi University in Ankara, a school established with the mission of training educators in different disciplines of art, he worked as a primary school teacher in the province of Van in the Eastern Anatolia Region of Turkey, before traveling to Paris in 1970 to study for his second degree.
During his stay in Paris, Çekil had the opportunity to establish close ties with conceptual art, and was greatly influenced by Minimalism, Arte Povera, New Realism and the Fluxus movement. His professor Etienne Martin and artists such as Marcel Duchamp and Joseph Beuys were among his other sources of inspiration. In Paris, the artist entered a period in which he began to use objects by detaching them from their contexts and also to think about concepts such as matter, heat and energy.
In this exhibition, the first work encountered is Obsession, which consists of a pencil case with an open mouth in the centre of a wooden frame and linen threads resembling a spider web around it. The leather pencil case, which forms the focus of the work and resembles the female genitalia, signifies the excitement of the act of creation as well as the attraction of discovery, while the threads surrounding it create a tense appearance resembling a dangerous trap. With this work, Çekil establishes an analogy between sexuality and reproduction by associating the pleasure of reproduction with a sexual object, revealing the mysterious side of reproduction and drawing attention to the dangerous and tense aspects of this act.
Another work that draws attention with its use of ready-made objects is the installation Towards Childhood, Since Childhood, located in the next room. Made by the artist while he was studying in Paris, the work was shown for the first time at Çekil's debut solo exhibition in Paris, Réorganisation pour une exposition [Reorganisation for an Exhibition], held in 1975 on the ground floor of a bar called Le Métronome. The artwork consists of twelve Coca-Cola bottles arranged in rows of four. For the work, Çekil places light bulbs in the mouths of the bottles and illuminates them with batteries in the base of the bottles. He also fixes the bottles on wooden sticks with tape and ropes, giving them the appearance of sleds. This work, in which we can see the influence of Beuys in formal and intellectual terms, was made in 1974 when the Vietnam War was nearing its end. With this artwork Çekil was inspired by the creative tactics used by North Vietnam against the Americans within very limited possibilities, inspiring him to arrange the Coca-Cola bottles, the symbol of America's cultural and economic imperialism, in a manner that resembles a Molotov cocktail or explosive.
The political context in Turkey and the world, as well as its reflections on himself and society, are among the important qualities that characterise Çekil's works. Reflecting the testimony of the period he lived through in his works, Çekil is also known for his critical and ironic works from time to time. The artist has been subjected to political investigations many times, and frequently experienced the violent dimension of this. His work therefore responds to the corruptions of social structures with art and reflects the artist’s belief that art has a healing and transformative function. Produced in this context, the installation Smashed into Pieces (1998) is spread over a large area in the last room of the upper floor and consists of 288 moulds of different parts of the human body painted in yellow gilding. The installation, in which each body part is exhibited on a separate cloth and is organised as a square in its entirety, is reminiscent of the dismembered body parts scattered as a result of massacre. Pointing to the value and uniqueness of each human life as each limb is carefully painted with yellow gilding, through this installation, Çekil makes a gesture honouring human life, so frequently disregarded in mass action events.
In order to get to know the artist better, the video work Cengiz Çekil School (1995-2015) should be watched before going downstairs or at the end of the exhibition. Produced by Vahap Avşar, Çekil's student and now a well-known artist in his own right, the video consists of visual and audio recordings of interviews between Çekil and Avşar. Watching the 9-hour video viewers have the opportunity to witness Çekil's ideas in his own voice and image.
Mashallah, one of Çekil's works with critical and ironic tones, is located on the wall near the ceiling while descending the stairs. The word 'MAŞAALLAH' is written in both the Latin and Arabic alphabet, and utilises the colours of the evil eye beads, yellow, blue and white. Being an Arabic word ‘Mashallah’, which means ‘What Allah wishes happens, what He/She does not wish does not happen’ is interpreted as a critical point of view on the fatalistic approach of the Turkish people to phenomena, since the work was produced at a politically tense time during the 12 September coup of 1980 in Turkey.
The lower floor of the exhibition mainly includes works related to the concept of time; one of these works titled 1200 Watches consists of 1200 strapless wristwatches that Çekil collected from flea markets. All these watches, which are placed on a glass table, are attached to navy blue cardboards with silver threads and the artist's name and surname are written on each cardboard in his handwriting. Among all these piles of clocks that have run out of mechanical life, only one clock works and shows the correct time, which is noticed only by attentive visitors. In addition to its function of organising time as a quantitative measure in modern life, the concept of the clock as an object of remembrance and its relation to death has an important place in Çekil's artistic practice. Another reason for Çekil's interest in clocks is that his father, whom he values very much, was a clock repairman; the artist states that the more he works with clocks, the more he feels like he is spending time with his father.
As the title of the exhibition suggests, Çekil is still “alive” today through his works that are still up to date, and Arter’s exhibition stands as an unmissable opportunity to take a closer look at Çekil's brave and experimental 40 years of production.
Cengiz Çekil: I Am Still Alive is showing at Arter in Istanbul until 24th September
Make sure to collect your Yamos on the gowithYamo app when you visit!
The most comprehensive exhibition of Cengiz Çekil (1945-2015), considered one of the pioneer artists of conceptual art in Turkey, continues at Arter until 24th September. Curated by Eda Berkmen and spread over the two floors of Arter, the exhibition features the artist’s works from different periods, some of which are on view for the first time. Çekil’s works draw on universal issues that shape people’s lives, such as death, time and energy, as well as politics, media and religion. The exhibition title, I Am Still Alive, is inspired by the artist's work 'Diary' (1976), which forms part of MoMA's collection. For this work, Çekil stamps the phrase ‘I AM STILL ALIVE’ diagonally on a notebook every day with the dates for two months and completes the work by stamping the phrase ‘I AM GOING TO THE ARMY' on the last page of the notebook on the day he was going to join the army. The work alludes to the political instability and polarization as well as the economic difficulties, prohibitions and oppression in Turkey in the 1970s, and shows that life continues despite all odds.
Known for his ability to always create possibilities within impossibilities, Çekil was born and raised in 1945 in the Bor district of Niğde, located in the Central Anatolia Region of Turkey. The views and way of life of his father had a great influence on the artist; within the limited possibilities of life in the town, his father's ability to produce creative solutions with used materials spread to Çekil, and he started to produce toys with everyday materials from an early age. This practical creativity and manual dexterity, which existed from an early age, laid the groundwork for Çekil's ideas about becoming an artist. After graduating from Gazi University in Ankara, a school established with the mission of training educators in different disciplines of art, he worked as a primary school teacher in the province of Van in the Eastern Anatolia Region of Turkey, before traveling to Paris in 1970 to study for his second degree.
During his stay in Paris, Çekil had the opportunity to establish close ties with conceptual art, and was greatly influenced by Minimalism, Arte Povera, New Realism and the Fluxus movement. His professor Etienne Martin and artists such as Marcel Duchamp and Joseph Beuys were among his other sources of inspiration. In Paris, the artist entered a period in which he began to use objects by detaching them from their contexts and also to think about concepts such as matter, heat and energy.
In this exhibition, the first work encountered is Obsession, which consists of a pencil case with an open mouth in the centre of a wooden frame and linen threads resembling a spider web around it. The leather pencil case, which forms the focus of the work and resembles the female genitalia, signifies the excitement of the act of creation as well as the attraction of discovery, while the threads surrounding it create a tense appearance resembling a dangerous trap. With this work, Çekil establishes an analogy between sexuality and reproduction by associating the pleasure of reproduction with a sexual object, revealing the mysterious side of reproduction and drawing attention to the dangerous and tense aspects of this act.
Another work that draws attention with its use of ready-made objects is the installation Towards Childhood, Since Childhood, located in the next room. Made by the artist while he was studying in Paris, the work was shown for the first time at Çekil's debut solo exhibition in Paris, Réorganisation pour une exposition [Reorganisation for an Exhibition], held in 1975 on the ground floor of a bar called Le Métronome. The artwork consists of twelve Coca-Cola bottles arranged in rows of four. For the work, Çekil places light bulbs in the mouths of the bottles and illuminates them with batteries in the base of the bottles. He also fixes the bottles on wooden sticks with tape and ropes, giving them the appearance of sleds. This work, in which we can see the influence of Beuys in formal and intellectual terms, was made in 1974 when the Vietnam War was nearing its end. With this artwork Çekil was inspired by the creative tactics used by North Vietnam against the Americans within very limited possibilities, inspiring him to arrange the Coca-Cola bottles, the symbol of America's cultural and economic imperialism, in a manner that resembles a Molotov cocktail or explosive.
The political context in Turkey and the world, as well as its reflections on himself and society, are among the important qualities that characterise Çekil's works. Reflecting the testimony of the period he lived through in his works, Çekil is also known for his critical and ironic works from time to time. The artist has been subjected to political investigations many times, and frequently experienced the violent dimension of this. His work therefore responds to the corruptions of social structures with art and reflects the artist’s belief that art has a healing and transformative function. Produced in this context, the installation Smashed into Pieces (1998) is spread over a large area in the last room of the upper floor and consists of 288 moulds of different parts of the human body painted in yellow gilding. The installation, in which each body part is exhibited on a separate cloth and is organised as a square in its entirety, is reminiscent of the dismembered body parts scattered as a result of massacre. Pointing to the value and uniqueness of each human life as each limb is carefully painted with yellow gilding, through this installation, Çekil makes a gesture honouring human life, so frequently disregarded in mass action events.
In order to get to know the artist better, the video work Cengiz Çekil School (1995-2015) should be watched before going downstairs or at the end of the exhibition. Produced by Vahap Avşar, Çekil's student and now a well-known artist in his own right, the video consists of visual and audio recordings of interviews between Çekil and Avşar. Watching the 9-hour video viewers have the opportunity to witness Çekil's ideas in his own voice and image.
Mashallah, one of Çekil's works with critical and ironic tones, is located on the wall near the ceiling while descending the stairs. The word 'MAŞAALLAH' is written in both the Latin and Arabic alphabet, and utilises the colours of the evil eye beads, yellow, blue and white. Being an Arabic word ‘Mashallah’, which means ‘What Allah wishes happens, what He/She does not wish does not happen’ is interpreted as a critical point of view on the fatalistic approach of the Turkish people to phenomena, since the work was produced at a politically tense time during the 12 September coup of 1980 in Turkey.
The lower floor of the exhibition mainly includes works related to the concept of time; one of these works titled 1200 Watches consists of 1200 strapless wristwatches that Çekil collected from flea markets. All these watches, which are placed on a glass table, are attached to navy blue cardboards with silver threads and the artist's name and surname are written on each cardboard in his handwriting. Among all these piles of clocks that have run out of mechanical life, only one clock works and shows the correct time, which is noticed only by attentive visitors. In addition to its function of organising time as a quantitative measure in modern life, the concept of the clock as an object of remembrance and its relation to death has an important place in Çekil's artistic practice. Another reason for Çekil's interest in clocks is that his father, whom he values very much, was a clock repairman; the artist states that the more he works with clocks, the more he feels like he is spending time with his father.
As the title of the exhibition suggests, Çekil is still “alive” today through his works that are still up to date, and Arter’s exhibition stands as an unmissable opportunity to take a closer look at Çekil's brave and experimental 40 years of production.
Cengiz Çekil: I Am Still Alive is showing at Arter in Istanbul until 24th September
Make sure to collect your Yamos on the gowithYamo app when you visit!
The most comprehensive exhibition of Cengiz Çekil (1945-2015), considered one of the pioneer artists of conceptual art in Turkey, continues at Arter until 24th September. Curated by Eda Berkmen and spread over the two floors of Arter, the exhibition features the artist’s works from different periods, some of which are on view for the first time. Çekil’s works draw on universal issues that shape people’s lives, such as death, time and energy, as well as politics, media and religion. The exhibition title, I Am Still Alive, is inspired by the artist's work 'Diary' (1976), which forms part of MoMA's collection. For this work, Çekil stamps the phrase ‘I AM STILL ALIVE’ diagonally on a notebook every day with the dates for two months and completes the work by stamping the phrase ‘I AM GOING TO THE ARMY' on the last page of the notebook on the day he was going to join the army. The work alludes to the political instability and polarization as well as the economic difficulties, prohibitions and oppression in Turkey in the 1970s, and shows that life continues despite all odds.
Known for his ability to always create possibilities within impossibilities, Çekil was born and raised in 1945 in the Bor district of Niğde, located in the Central Anatolia Region of Turkey. The views and way of life of his father had a great influence on the artist; within the limited possibilities of life in the town, his father's ability to produce creative solutions with used materials spread to Çekil, and he started to produce toys with everyday materials from an early age. This practical creativity and manual dexterity, which existed from an early age, laid the groundwork for Çekil's ideas about becoming an artist. After graduating from Gazi University in Ankara, a school established with the mission of training educators in different disciplines of art, he worked as a primary school teacher in the province of Van in the Eastern Anatolia Region of Turkey, before traveling to Paris in 1970 to study for his second degree.
During his stay in Paris, Çekil had the opportunity to establish close ties with conceptual art, and was greatly influenced by Minimalism, Arte Povera, New Realism and the Fluxus movement. His professor Etienne Martin and artists such as Marcel Duchamp and Joseph Beuys were among his other sources of inspiration. In Paris, the artist entered a period in which he began to use objects by detaching them from their contexts and also to think about concepts such as matter, heat and energy.
In this exhibition, the first work encountered is Obsession, which consists of a pencil case with an open mouth in the centre of a wooden frame and linen threads resembling a spider web around it. The leather pencil case, which forms the focus of the work and resembles the female genitalia, signifies the excitement of the act of creation as well as the attraction of discovery, while the threads surrounding it create a tense appearance resembling a dangerous trap. With this work, Çekil establishes an analogy between sexuality and reproduction by associating the pleasure of reproduction with a sexual object, revealing the mysterious side of reproduction and drawing attention to the dangerous and tense aspects of this act.
Another work that draws attention with its use of ready-made objects is the installation Towards Childhood, Since Childhood, located in the next room. Made by the artist while he was studying in Paris, the work was shown for the first time at Çekil's debut solo exhibition in Paris, Réorganisation pour une exposition [Reorganisation for an Exhibition], held in 1975 on the ground floor of a bar called Le Métronome. The artwork consists of twelve Coca-Cola bottles arranged in rows of four. For the work, Çekil places light bulbs in the mouths of the bottles and illuminates them with batteries in the base of the bottles. He also fixes the bottles on wooden sticks with tape and ropes, giving them the appearance of sleds. This work, in which we can see the influence of Beuys in formal and intellectual terms, was made in 1974 when the Vietnam War was nearing its end. With this artwork Çekil was inspired by the creative tactics used by North Vietnam against the Americans within very limited possibilities, inspiring him to arrange the Coca-Cola bottles, the symbol of America's cultural and economic imperialism, in a manner that resembles a Molotov cocktail or explosive.
The political context in Turkey and the world, as well as its reflections on himself and society, are among the important qualities that characterise Çekil's works. Reflecting the testimony of the period he lived through in his works, Çekil is also known for his critical and ironic works from time to time. The artist has been subjected to political investigations many times, and frequently experienced the violent dimension of this. His work therefore responds to the corruptions of social structures with art and reflects the artist’s belief that art has a healing and transformative function. Produced in this context, the installation Smashed into Pieces (1998) is spread over a large area in the last room of the upper floor and consists of 288 moulds of different parts of the human body painted in yellow gilding. The installation, in which each body part is exhibited on a separate cloth and is organised as a square in its entirety, is reminiscent of the dismembered body parts scattered as a result of massacre. Pointing to the value and uniqueness of each human life as each limb is carefully painted with yellow gilding, through this installation, Çekil makes a gesture honouring human life, so frequently disregarded in mass action events.
In order to get to know the artist better, the video work Cengiz Çekil School (1995-2015) should be watched before going downstairs or at the end of the exhibition. Produced by Vahap Avşar, Çekil's student and now a well-known artist in his own right, the video consists of visual and audio recordings of interviews between Çekil and Avşar. Watching the 9-hour video viewers have the opportunity to witness Çekil's ideas in his own voice and image.
Mashallah, one of Çekil's works with critical and ironic tones, is located on the wall near the ceiling while descending the stairs. The word 'MAŞAALLAH' is written in both the Latin and Arabic alphabet, and utilises the colours of the evil eye beads, yellow, blue and white. Being an Arabic word ‘Mashallah’, which means ‘What Allah wishes happens, what He/She does not wish does not happen’ is interpreted as a critical point of view on the fatalistic approach of the Turkish people to phenomena, since the work was produced at a politically tense time during the 12 September coup of 1980 in Turkey.
The lower floor of the exhibition mainly includes works related to the concept of time; one of these works titled 1200 Watches consists of 1200 strapless wristwatches that Çekil collected from flea markets. All these watches, which are placed on a glass table, are attached to navy blue cardboards with silver threads and the artist's name and surname are written on each cardboard in his handwriting. Among all these piles of clocks that have run out of mechanical life, only one clock works and shows the correct time, which is noticed only by attentive visitors. In addition to its function of organising time as a quantitative measure in modern life, the concept of the clock as an object of remembrance and its relation to death has an important place in Çekil's artistic practice. Another reason for Çekil's interest in clocks is that his father, whom he values very much, was a clock repairman; the artist states that the more he works with clocks, the more he feels like he is spending time with his father.
As the title of the exhibition suggests, Çekil is still “alive” today through his works that are still up to date, and Arter’s exhibition stands as an unmissable opportunity to take a closer look at Çekil's brave and experimental 40 years of production.
Cengiz Çekil: I Am Still Alive is showing at Arter in Istanbul until 24th September
Make sure to collect your Yamos on the gowithYamo app when you visit!
The most comprehensive exhibition of Cengiz Çekil (1945-2015), considered one of the pioneer artists of conceptual art in Turkey, continues at Arter until 24th September. Curated by Eda Berkmen and spread over the two floors of Arter, the exhibition features the artist’s works from different periods, some of which are on view for the first time. Çekil’s works draw on universal issues that shape people’s lives, such as death, time and energy, as well as politics, media and religion. The exhibition title, I Am Still Alive, is inspired by the artist's work 'Diary' (1976), which forms part of MoMA's collection. For this work, Çekil stamps the phrase ‘I AM STILL ALIVE’ diagonally on a notebook every day with the dates for two months and completes the work by stamping the phrase ‘I AM GOING TO THE ARMY' on the last page of the notebook on the day he was going to join the army. The work alludes to the political instability and polarization as well as the economic difficulties, prohibitions and oppression in Turkey in the 1970s, and shows that life continues despite all odds.
Known for his ability to always create possibilities within impossibilities, Çekil was born and raised in 1945 in the Bor district of Niğde, located in the Central Anatolia Region of Turkey. The views and way of life of his father had a great influence on the artist; within the limited possibilities of life in the town, his father's ability to produce creative solutions with used materials spread to Çekil, and he started to produce toys with everyday materials from an early age. This practical creativity and manual dexterity, which existed from an early age, laid the groundwork for Çekil's ideas about becoming an artist. After graduating from Gazi University in Ankara, a school established with the mission of training educators in different disciplines of art, he worked as a primary school teacher in the province of Van in the Eastern Anatolia Region of Turkey, before traveling to Paris in 1970 to study for his second degree.
During his stay in Paris, Çekil had the opportunity to establish close ties with conceptual art, and was greatly influenced by Minimalism, Arte Povera, New Realism and the Fluxus movement. His professor Etienne Martin and artists such as Marcel Duchamp and Joseph Beuys were among his other sources of inspiration. In Paris, the artist entered a period in which he began to use objects by detaching them from their contexts and also to think about concepts such as matter, heat and energy.
In this exhibition, the first work encountered is Obsession, which consists of a pencil case with an open mouth in the centre of a wooden frame and linen threads resembling a spider web around it. The leather pencil case, which forms the focus of the work and resembles the female genitalia, signifies the excitement of the act of creation as well as the attraction of discovery, while the threads surrounding it create a tense appearance resembling a dangerous trap. With this work, Çekil establishes an analogy between sexuality and reproduction by associating the pleasure of reproduction with a sexual object, revealing the mysterious side of reproduction and drawing attention to the dangerous and tense aspects of this act.
Another work that draws attention with its use of ready-made objects is the installation Towards Childhood, Since Childhood, located in the next room. Made by the artist while he was studying in Paris, the work was shown for the first time at Çekil's debut solo exhibition in Paris, Réorganisation pour une exposition [Reorganisation for an Exhibition], held in 1975 on the ground floor of a bar called Le Métronome. The artwork consists of twelve Coca-Cola bottles arranged in rows of four. For the work, Çekil places light bulbs in the mouths of the bottles and illuminates them with batteries in the base of the bottles. He also fixes the bottles on wooden sticks with tape and ropes, giving them the appearance of sleds. This work, in which we can see the influence of Beuys in formal and intellectual terms, was made in 1974 when the Vietnam War was nearing its end. With this artwork Çekil was inspired by the creative tactics used by North Vietnam against the Americans within very limited possibilities, inspiring him to arrange the Coca-Cola bottles, the symbol of America's cultural and economic imperialism, in a manner that resembles a Molotov cocktail or explosive.
The political context in Turkey and the world, as well as its reflections on himself and society, are among the important qualities that characterise Çekil's works. Reflecting the testimony of the period he lived through in his works, Çekil is also known for his critical and ironic works from time to time. The artist has been subjected to political investigations many times, and frequently experienced the violent dimension of this. His work therefore responds to the corruptions of social structures with art and reflects the artist’s belief that art has a healing and transformative function. Produced in this context, the installation Smashed into Pieces (1998) is spread over a large area in the last room of the upper floor and consists of 288 moulds of different parts of the human body painted in yellow gilding. The installation, in which each body part is exhibited on a separate cloth and is organised as a square in its entirety, is reminiscent of the dismembered body parts scattered as a result of massacre. Pointing to the value and uniqueness of each human life as each limb is carefully painted with yellow gilding, through this installation, Çekil makes a gesture honouring human life, so frequently disregarded in mass action events.
In order to get to know the artist better, the video work Cengiz Çekil School (1995-2015) should be watched before going downstairs or at the end of the exhibition. Produced by Vahap Avşar, Çekil's student and now a well-known artist in his own right, the video consists of visual and audio recordings of interviews between Çekil and Avşar. Watching the 9-hour video viewers have the opportunity to witness Çekil's ideas in his own voice and image.
Mashallah, one of Çekil's works with critical and ironic tones, is located on the wall near the ceiling while descending the stairs. The word 'MAŞAALLAH' is written in both the Latin and Arabic alphabet, and utilises the colours of the evil eye beads, yellow, blue and white. Being an Arabic word ‘Mashallah’, which means ‘What Allah wishes happens, what He/She does not wish does not happen’ is interpreted as a critical point of view on the fatalistic approach of the Turkish people to phenomena, since the work was produced at a politically tense time during the 12 September coup of 1980 in Turkey.
The lower floor of the exhibition mainly includes works related to the concept of time; one of these works titled 1200 Watches consists of 1200 strapless wristwatches that Çekil collected from flea markets. All these watches, which are placed on a glass table, are attached to navy blue cardboards with silver threads and the artist's name and surname are written on each cardboard in his handwriting. Among all these piles of clocks that have run out of mechanical life, only one clock works and shows the correct time, which is noticed only by attentive visitors. In addition to its function of organising time as a quantitative measure in modern life, the concept of the clock as an object of remembrance and its relation to death has an important place in Çekil's artistic practice. Another reason for Çekil's interest in clocks is that his father, whom he values very much, was a clock repairman; the artist states that the more he works with clocks, the more he feels like he is spending time with his father.
As the title of the exhibition suggests, Çekil is still “alive” today through his works that are still up to date, and Arter’s exhibition stands as an unmissable opportunity to take a closer look at Çekil's brave and experimental 40 years of production.
Cengiz Çekil: I Am Still Alive is showing at Arter in Istanbul until 24th September
Make sure to collect your Yamos on the gowithYamo app when you visit!
The most comprehensive exhibition of Cengiz Çekil (1945-2015), considered one of the pioneer artists of conceptual art in Turkey, continues at Arter until 24th September. Curated by Eda Berkmen and spread over the two floors of Arter, the exhibition features the artist’s works from different periods, some of which are on view for the first time. Çekil’s works draw on universal issues that shape people’s lives, such as death, time and energy, as well as politics, media and religion. The exhibition title, I Am Still Alive, is inspired by the artist's work 'Diary' (1976), which forms part of MoMA's collection. For this work, Çekil stamps the phrase ‘I AM STILL ALIVE’ diagonally on a notebook every day with the dates for two months and completes the work by stamping the phrase ‘I AM GOING TO THE ARMY' on the last page of the notebook on the day he was going to join the army. The work alludes to the political instability and polarization as well as the economic difficulties, prohibitions and oppression in Turkey in the 1970s, and shows that life continues despite all odds.
Known for his ability to always create possibilities within impossibilities, Çekil was born and raised in 1945 in the Bor district of Niğde, located in the Central Anatolia Region of Turkey. The views and way of life of his father had a great influence on the artist; within the limited possibilities of life in the town, his father's ability to produce creative solutions with used materials spread to Çekil, and he started to produce toys with everyday materials from an early age. This practical creativity and manual dexterity, which existed from an early age, laid the groundwork for Çekil's ideas about becoming an artist. After graduating from Gazi University in Ankara, a school established with the mission of training educators in different disciplines of art, he worked as a primary school teacher in the province of Van in the Eastern Anatolia Region of Turkey, before traveling to Paris in 1970 to study for his second degree.
During his stay in Paris, Çekil had the opportunity to establish close ties with conceptual art, and was greatly influenced by Minimalism, Arte Povera, New Realism and the Fluxus movement. His professor Etienne Martin and artists such as Marcel Duchamp and Joseph Beuys were among his other sources of inspiration. In Paris, the artist entered a period in which he began to use objects by detaching them from their contexts and also to think about concepts such as matter, heat and energy.
In this exhibition, the first work encountered is Obsession, which consists of a pencil case with an open mouth in the centre of a wooden frame and linen threads resembling a spider web around it. The leather pencil case, which forms the focus of the work and resembles the female genitalia, signifies the excitement of the act of creation as well as the attraction of discovery, while the threads surrounding it create a tense appearance resembling a dangerous trap. With this work, Çekil establishes an analogy between sexuality and reproduction by associating the pleasure of reproduction with a sexual object, revealing the mysterious side of reproduction and drawing attention to the dangerous and tense aspects of this act.
Another work that draws attention with its use of ready-made objects is the installation Towards Childhood, Since Childhood, located in the next room. Made by the artist while he was studying in Paris, the work was shown for the first time at Çekil's debut solo exhibition in Paris, Réorganisation pour une exposition [Reorganisation for an Exhibition], held in 1975 on the ground floor of a bar called Le Métronome. The artwork consists of twelve Coca-Cola bottles arranged in rows of four. For the work, Çekil places light bulbs in the mouths of the bottles and illuminates them with batteries in the base of the bottles. He also fixes the bottles on wooden sticks with tape and ropes, giving them the appearance of sleds. This work, in which we can see the influence of Beuys in formal and intellectual terms, was made in 1974 when the Vietnam War was nearing its end. With this artwork Çekil was inspired by the creative tactics used by North Vietnam against the Americans within very limited possibilities, inspiring him to arrange the Coca-Cola bottles, the symbol of America's cultural and economic imperialism, in a manner that resembles a Molotov cocktail or explosive.
The political context in Turkey and the world, as well as its reflections on himself and society, are among the important qualities that characterise Çekil's works. Reflecting the testimony of the period he lived through in his works, Çekil is also known for his critical and ironic works from time to time. The artist has been subjected to political investigations many times, and frequently experienced the violent dimension of this. His work therefore responds to the corruptions of social structures with art and reflects the artist’s belief that art has a healing and transformative function. Produced in this context, the installation Smashed into Pieces (1998) is spread over a large area in the last room of the upper floor and consists of 288 moulds of different parts of the human body painted in yellow gilding. The installation, in which each body part is exhibited on a separate cloth and is organised as a square in its entirety, is reminiscent of the dismembered body parts scattered as a result of massacre. Pointing to the value and uniqueness of each human life as each limb is carefully painted with yellow gilding, through this installation, Çekil makes a gesture honouring human life, so frequently disregarded in mass action events.
In order to get to know the artist better, the video work Cengiz Çekil School (1995-2015) should be watched before going downstairs or at the end of the exhibition. Produced by Vahap Avşar, Çekil's student and now a well-known artist in his own right, the video consists of visual and audio recordings of interviews between Çekil and Avşar. Watching the 9-hour video viewers have the opportunity to witness Çekil's ideas in his own voice and image.
Mashallah, one of Çekil's works with critical and ironic tones, is located on the wall near the ceiling while descending the stairs. The word 'MAŞAALLAH' is written in both the Latin and Arabic alphabet, and utilises the colours of the evil eye beads, yellow, blue and white. Being an Arabic word ‘Mashallah’, which means ‘What Allah wishes happens, what He/She does not wish does not happen’ is interpreted as a critical point of view on the fatalistic approach of the Turkish people to phenomena, since the work was produced at a politically tense time during the 12 September coup of 1980 in Turkey.
The lower floor of the exhibition mainly includes works related to the concept of time; one of these works titled 1200 Watches consists of 1200 strapless wristwatches that Çekil collected from flea markets. All these watches, which are placed on a glass table, are attached to navy blue cardboards with silver threads and the artist's name and surname are written on each cardboard in his handwriting. Among all these piles of clocks that have run out of mechanical life, only one clock works and shows the correct time, which is noticed only by attentive visitors. In addition to its function of organising time as a quantitative measure in modern life, the concept of the clock as an object of remembrance and its relation to death has an important place in Çekil's artistic practice. Another reason for Çekil's interest in clocks is that his father, whom he values very much, was a clock repairman; the artist states that the more he works with clocks, the more he feels like he is spending time with his father.
As the title of the exhibition suggests, Çekil is still “alive” today through his works that are still up to date, and Arter’s exhibition stands as an unmissable opportunity to take a closer look at Çekil's brave and experimental 40 years of production.
Cengiz Çekil: I Am Still Alive is showing at Arter in Istanbul until 24th September
Make sure to collect your Yamos on the gowithYamo app when you visit!
The most comprehensive exhibition of Cengiz Çekil (1945-2015), considered one of the pioneer artists of conceptual art in Turkey, continues at Arter until 24th September. Curated by Eda Berkmen and spread over the two floors of Arter, the exhibition features the artist’s works from different periods, some of which are on view for the first time. Çekil’s works draw on universal issues that shape people’s lives, such as death, time and energy, as well as politics, media and religion. The exhibition title, I Am Still Alive, is inspired by the artist's work 'Diary' (1976), which forms part of MoMA's collection. For this work, Çekil stamps the phrase ‘I AM STILL ALIVE’ diagonally on a notebook every day with the dates for two months and completes the work by stamping the phrase ‘I AM GOING TO THE ARMY' on the last page of the notebook on the day he was going to join the army. The work alludes to the political instability and polarization as well as the economic difficulties, prohibitions and oppression in Turkey in the 1970s, and shows that life continues despite all odds.
Known for his ability to always create possibilities within impossibilities, Çekil was born and raised in 1945 in the Bor district of Niğde, located in the Central Anatolia Region of Turkey. The views and way of life of his father had a great influence on the artist; within the limited possibilities of life in the town, his father's ability to produce creative solutions with used materials spread to Çekil, and he started to produce toys with everyday materials from an early age. This practical creativity and manual dexterity, which existed from an early age, laid the groundwork for Çekil's ideas about becoming an artist. After graduating from Gazi University in Ankara, a school established with the mission of training educators in different disciplines of art, he worked as a primary school teacher in the province of Van in the Eastern Anatolia Region of Turkey, before traveling to Paris in 1970 to study for his second degree.
During his stay in Paris, Çekil had the opportunity to establish close ties with conceptual art, and was greatly influenced by Minimalism, Arte Povera, New Realism and the Fluxus movement. His professor Etienne Martin and artists such as Marcel Duchamp and Joseph Beuys were among his other sources of inspiration. In Paris, the artist entered a period in which he began to use objects by detaching them from their contexts and also to think about concepts such as matter, heat and energy.
In this exhibition, the first work encountered is Obsession, which consists of a pencil case with an open mouth in the centre of a wooden frame and linen threads resembling a spider web around it. The leather pencil case, which forms the focus of the work and resembles the female genitalia, signifies the excitement of the act of creation as well as the attraction of discovery, while the threads surrounding it create a tense appearance resembling a dangerous trap. With this work, Çekil establishes an analogy between sexuality and reproduction by associating the pleasure of reproduction with a sexual object, revealing the mysterious side of reproduction and drawing attention to the dangerous and tense aspects of this act.
Another work that draws attention with its use of ready-made objects is the installation Towards Childhood, Since Childhood, located in the next room. Made by the artist while he was studying in Paris, the work was shown for the first time at Çekil's debut solo exhibition in Paris, Réorganisation pour une exposition [Reorganisation for an Exhibition], held in 1975 on the ground floor of a bar called Le Métronome. The artwork consists of twelve Coca-Cola bottles arranged in rows of four. For the work, Çekil places light bulbs in the mouths of the bottles and illuminates them with batteries in the base of the bottles. He also fixes the bottles on wooden sticks with tape and ropes, giving them the appearance of sleds. This work, in which we can see the influence of Beuys in formal and intellectual terms, was made in 1974 when the Vietnam War was nearing its end. With this artwork Çekil was inspired by the creative tactics used by North Vietnam against the Americans within very limited possibilities, inspiring him to arrange the Coca-Cola bottles, the symbol of America's cultural and economic imperialism, in a manner that resembles a Molotov cocktail or explosive.
The political context in Turkey and the world, as well as its reflections on himself and society, are among the important qualities that characterise Çekil's works. Reflecting the testimony of the period he lived through in his works, Çekil is also known for his critical and ironic works from time to time. The artist has been subjected to political investigations many times, and frequently experienced the violent dimension of this. His work therefore responds to the corruptions of social structures with art and reflects the artist’s belief that art has a healing and transformative function. Produced in this context, the installation Smashed into Pieces (1998) is spread over a large area in the last room of the upper floor and consists of 288 moulds of different parts of the human body painted in yellow gilding. The installation, in which each body part is exhibited on a separate cloth and is organised as a square in its entirety, is reminiscent of the dismembered body parts scattered as a result of massacre. Pointing to the value and uniqueness of each human life as each limb is carefully painted with yellow gilding, through this installation, Çekil makes a gesture honouring human life, so frequently disregarded in mass action events.
In order to get to know the artist better, the video work Cengiz Çekil School (1995-2015) should be watched before going downstairs or at the end of the exhibition. Produced by Vahap Avşar, Çekil's student and now a well-known artist in his own right, the video consists of visual and audio recordings of interviews between Çekil and Avşar. Watching the 9-hour video viewers have the opportunity to witness Çekil's ideas in his own voice and image.
Mashallah, one of Çekil's works with critical and ironic tones, is located on the wall near the ceiling while descending the stairs. The word 'MAŞAALLAH' is written in both the Latin and Arabic alphabet, and utilises the colours of the evil eye beads, yellow, blue and white. Being an Arabic word ‘Mashallah’, which means ‘What Allah wishes happens, what He/She does not wish does not happen’ is interpreted as a critical point of view on the fatalistic approach of the Turkish people to phenomena, since the work was produced at a politically tense time during the 12 September coup of 1980 in Turkey.
The lower floor of the exhibition mainly includes works related to the concept of time; one of these works titled 1200 Watches consists of 1200 strapless wristwatches that Çekil collected from flea markets. All these watches, which are placed on a glass table, are attached to navy blue cardboards with silver threads and the artist's name and surname are written on each cardboard in his handwriting. Among all these piles of clocks that have run out of mechanical life, only one clock works and shows the correct time, which is noticed only by attentive visitors. In addition to its function of organising time as a quantitative measure in modern life, the concept of the clock as an object of remembrance and its relation to death has an important place in Çekil's artistic practice. Another reason for Çekil's interest in clocks is that his father, whom he values very much, was a clock repairman; the artist states that the more he works with clocks, the more he feels like he is spending time with his father.
As the title of the exhibition suggests, Çekil is still “alive” today through his works that are still up to date, and Arter’s exhibition stands as an unmissable opportunity to take a closer look at Çekil's brave and experimental 40 years of production.
Cengiz Çekil: I Am Still Alive is showing at Arter in Istanbul until 24th September
Make sure to collect your Yamos on the gowithYamo app when you visit!
The most comprehensive exhibition of Cengiz Çekil (1945-2015), considered one of the pioneer artists of conceptual art in Turkey, continues at Arter until 24th September. Curated by Eda Berkmen and spread over the two floors of Arter, the exhibition features the artist’s works from different periods, some of which are on view for the first time. Çekil’s works draw on universal issues that shape people’s lives, such as death, time and energy, as well as politics, media and religion. The exhibition title, I Am Still Alive, is inspired by the artist's work 'Diary' (1976), which forms part of MoMA's collection. For this work, Çekil stamps the phrase ‘I AM STILL ALIVE’ diagonally on a notebook every day with the dates for two months and completes the work by stamping the phrase ‘I AM GOING TO THE ARMY' on the last page of the notebook on the day he was going to join the army. The work alludes to the political instability and polarization as well as the economic difficulties, prohibitions and oppression in Turkey in the 1970s, and shows that life continues despite all odds.
Known for his ability to always create possibilities within impossibilities, Çekil was born and raised in 1945 in the Bor district of Niğde, located in the Central Anatolia Region of Turkey. The views and way of life of his father had a great influence on the artist; within the limited possibilities of life in the town, his father's ability to produce creative solutions with used materials spread to Çekil, and he started to produce toys with everyday materials from an early age. This practical creativity and manual dexterity, which existed from an early age, laid the groundwork for Çekil's ideas about becoming an artist. After graduating from Gazi University in Ankara, a school established with the mission of training educators in different disciplines of art, he worked as a primary school teacher in the province of Van in the Eastern Anatolia Region of Turkey, before traveling to Paris in 1970 to study for his second degree.
During his stay in Paris, Çekil had the opportunity to establish close ties with conceptual art, and was greatly influenced by Minimalism, Arte Povera, New Realism and the Fluxus movement. His professor Etienne Martin and artists such as Marcel Duchamp and Joseph Beuys were among his other sources of inspiration. In Paris, the artist entered a period in which he began to use objects by detaching them from their contexts and also to think about concepts such as matter, heat and energy.
In this exhibition, the first work encountered is Obsession, which consists of a pencil case with an open mouth in the centre of a wooden frame and linen threads resembling a spider web around it. The leather pencil case, which forms the focus of the work and resembles the female genitalia, signifies the excitement of the act of creation as well as the attraction of discovery, while the threads surrounding it create a tense appearance resembling a dangerous trap. With this work, Çekil establishes an analogy between sexuality and reproduction by associating the pleasure of reproduction with a sexual object, revealing the mysterious side of reproduction and drawing attention to the dangerous and tense aspects of this act.
Another work that draws attention with its use of ready-made objects is the installation Towards Childhood, Since Childhood, located in the next room. Made by the artist while he was studying in Paris, the work was shown for the first time at Çekil's debut solo exhibition in Paris, Réorganisation pour une exposition [Reorganisation for an Exhibition], held in 1975 on the ground floor of a bar called Le Métronome. The artwork consists of twelve Coca-Cola bottles arranged in rows of four. For the work, Çekil places light bulbs in the mouths of the bottles and illuminates them with batteries in the base of the bottles. He also fixes the bottles on wooden sticks with tape and ropes, giving them the appearance of sleds. This work, in which we can see the influence of Beuys in formal and intellectual terms, was made in 1974 when the Vietnam War was nearing its end. With this artwork Çekil was inspired by the creative tactics used by North Vietnam against the Americans within very limited possibilities, inspiring him to arrange the Coca-Cola bottles, the symbol of America's cultural and economic imperialism, in a manner that resembles a Molotov cocktail or explosive.
The political context in Turkey and the world, as well as its reflections on himself and society, are among the important qualities that characterise Çekil's works. Reflecting the testimony of the period he lived through in his works, Çekil is also known for his critical and ironic works from time to time. The artist has been subjected to political investigations many times, and frequently experienced the violent dimension of this. His work therefore responds to the corruptions of social structures with art and reflects the artist’s belief that art has a healing and transformative function. Produced in this context, the installation Smashed into Pieces (1998) is spread over a large area in the last room of the upper floor and consists of 288 moulds of different parts of the human body painted in yellow gilding. The installation, in which each body part is exhibited on a separate cloth and is organised as a square in its entirety, is reminiscent of the dismembered body parts scattered as a result of massacre. Pointing to the value and uniqueness of each human life as each limb is carefully painted with yellow gilding, through this installation, Çekil makes a gesture honouring human life, so frequently disregarded in mass action events.
In order to get to know the artist better, the video work Cengiz Çekil School (1995-2015) should be watched before going downstairs or at the end of the exhibition. Produced by Vahap Avşar, Çekil's student and now a well-known artist in his own right, the video consists of visual and audio recordings of interviews between Çekil and Avşar. Watching the 9-hour video viewers have the opportunity to witness Çekil's ideas in his own voice and image.
Mashallah, one of Çekil's works with critical and ironic tones, is located on the wall near the ceiling while descending the stairs. The word 'MAŞAALLAH' is written in both the Latin and Arabic alphabet, and utilises the colours of the evil eye beads, yellow, blue and white. Being an Arabic word ‘Mashallah’, which means ‘What Allah wishes happens, what He/She does not wish does not happen’ is interpreted as a critical point of view on the fatalistic approach of the Turkish people to phenomena, since the work was produced at a politically tense time during the 12 September coup of 1980 in Turkey.
The lower floor of the exhibition mainly includes works related to the concept of time; one of these works titled 1200 Watches consists of 1200 strapless wristwatches that Çekil collected from flea markets. All these watches, which are placed on a glass table, are attached to navy blue cardboards with silver threads and the artist's name and surname are written on each cardboard in his handwriting. Among all these piles of clocks that have run out of mechanical life, only one clock works and shows the correct time, which is noticed only by attentive visitors. In addition to its function of organising time as a quantitative measure in modern life, the concept of the clock as an object of remembrance and its relation to death has an important place in Çekil's artistic practice. Another reason for Çekil's interest in clocks is that his father, whom he values very much, was a clock repairman; the artist states that the more he works with clocks, the more he feels like he is spending time with his father.
As the title of the exhibition suggests, Çekil is still “alive” today through his works that are still up to date, and Arter’s exhibition stands as an unmissable opportunity to take a closer look at Çekil's brave and experimental 40 years of production.
Cengiz Çekil: I Am Still Alive is showing at Arter in Istanbul until 24th September
Make sure to collect your Yamos on the gowithYamo app when you visit!
The most comprehensive exhibition of Cengiz Çekil (1945-2015), considered one of the pioneer artists of conceptual art in Turkey, continues at Arter until 24th September. Curated by Eda Berkmen and spread over the two floors of Arter, the exhibition features the artist’s works from different periods, some of which are on view for the first time. Çekil’s works draw on universal issues that shape people’s lives, such as death, time and energy, as well as politics, media and religion. The exhibition title, I Am Still Alive, is inspired by the artist's work 'Diary' (1976), which forms part of MoMA's collection. For this work, Çekil stamps the phrase ‘I AM STILL ALIVE’ diagonally on a notebook every day with the dates for two months and completes the work by stamping the phrase ‘I AM GOING TO THE ARMY' on the last page of the notebook on the day he was going to join the army. The work alludes to the political instability and polarization as well as the economic difficulties, prohibitions and oppression in Turkey in the 1970s, and shows that life continues despite all odds.
Known for his ability to always create possibilities within impossibilities, Çekil was born and raised in 1945 in the Bor district of Niğde, located in the Central Anatolia Region of Turkey. The views and way of life of his father had a great influence on the artist; within the limited possibilities of life in the town, his father's ability to produce creative solutions with used materials spread to Çekil, and he started to produce toys with everyday materials from an early age. This practical creativity and manual dexterity, which existed from an early age, laid the groundwork for Çekil's ideas about becoming an artist. After graduating from Gazi University in Ankara, a school established with the mission of training educators in different disciplines of art, he worked as a primary school teacher in the province of Van in the Eastern Anatolia Region of Turkey, before traveling to Paris in 1970 to study for his second degree.
During his stay in Paris, Çekil had the opportunity to establish close ties with conceptual art, and was greatly influenced by Minimalism, Arte Povera, New Realism and the Fluxus movement. His professor Etienne Martin and artists such as Marcel Duchamp and Joseph Beuys were among his other sources of inspiration. In Paris, the artist entered a period in which he began to use objects by detaching them from their contexts and also to think about concepts such as matter, heat and energy.
In this exhibition, the first work encountered is Obsession, which consists of a pencil case with an open mouth in the centre of a wooden frame and linen threads resembling a spider web around it. The leather pencil case, which forms the focus of the work and resembles the female genitalia, signifies the excitement of the act of creation as well as the attraction of discovery, while the threads surrounding it create a tense appearance resembling a dangerous trap. With this work, Çekil establishes an analogy between sexuality and reproduction by associating the pleasure of reproduction with a sexual object, revealing the mysterious side of reproduction and drawing attention to the dangerous and tense aspects of this act.
Another work that draws attention with its use of ready-made objects is the installation Towards Childhood, Since Childhood, located in the next room. Made by the artist while he was studying in Paris, the work was shown for the first time at Çekil's debut solo exhibition in Paris, Réorganisation pour une exposition [Reorganisation for an Exhibition], held in 1975 on the ground floor of a bar called Le Métronome. The artwork consists of twelve Coca-Cola bottles arranged in rows of four. For the work, Çekil places light bulbs in the mouths of the bottles and illuminates them with batteries in the base of the bottles. He also fixes the bottles on wooden sticks with tape and ropes, giving them the appearance of sleds. This work, in which we can see the influence of Beuys in formal and intellectual terms, was made in 1974 when the Vietnam War was nearing its end. With this artwork Çekil was inspired by the creative tactics used by North Vietnam against the Americans within very limited possibilities, inspiring him to arrange the Coca-Cola bottles, the symbol of America's cultural and economic imperialism, in a manner that resembles a Molotov cocktail or explosive.
The political context in Turkey and the world, as well as its reflections on himself and society, are among the important qualities that characterise Çekil's works. Reflecting the testimony of the period he lived through in his works, Çekil is also known for his critical and ironic works from time to time. The artist has been subjected to political investigations many times, and frequently experienced the violent dimension of this. His work therefore responds to the corruptions of social structures with art and reflects the artist’s belief that art has a healing and transformative function. Produced in this context, the installation Smashed into Pieces (1998) is spread over a large area in the last room of the upper floor and consists of 288 moulds of different parts of the human body painted in yellow gilding. The installation, in which each body part is exhibited on a separate cloth and is organised as a square in its entirety, is reminiscent of the dismembered body parts scattered as a result of massacre. Pointing to the value and uniqueness of each human life as each limb is carefully painted with yellow gilding, through this installation, Çekil makes a gesture honouring human life, so frequently disregarded in mass action events.
In order to get to know the artist better, the video work Cengiz Çekil School (1995-2015) should be watched before going downstairs or at the end of the exhibition. Produced by Vahap Avşar, Çekil's student and now a well-known artist in his own right, the video consists of visual and audio recordings of interviews between Çekil and Avşar. Watching the 9-hour video viewers have the opportunity to witness Çekil's ideas in his own voice and image.
Mashallah, one of Çekil's works with critical and ironic tones, is located on the wall near the ceiling while descending the stairs. The word 'MAŞAALLAH' is written in both the Latin and Arabic alphabet, and utilises the colours of the evil eye beads, yellow, blue and white. Being an Arabic word ‘Mashallah’, which means ‘What Allah wishes happens, what He/She does not wish does not happen’ is interpreted as a critical point of view on the fatalistic approach of the Turkish people to phenomena, since the work was produced at a politically tense time during the 12 September coup of 1980 in Turkey.
The lower floor of the exhibition mainly includes works related to the concept of time; one of these works titled 1200 Watches consists of 1200 strapless wristwatches that Çekil collected from flea markets. All these watches, which are placed on a glass table, are attached to navy blue cardboards with silver threads and the artist's name and surname are written on each cardboard in his handwriting. Among all these piles of clocks that have run out of mechanical life, only one clock works and shows the correct time, which is noticed only by attentive visitors. In addition to its function of organising time as a quantitative measure in modern life, the concept of the clock as an object of remembrance and its relation to death has an important place in Çekil's artistic practice. Another reason for Çekil's interest in clocks is that his father, whom he values very much, was a clock repairman; the artist states that the more he works with clocks, the more he feels like he is spending time with his father.
As the title of the exhibition suggests, Çekil is still “alive” today through his works that are still up to date, and Arter’s exhibition stands as an unmissable opportunity to take a closer look at Çekil's brave and experimental 40 years of production.
Cengiz Çekil: I Am Still Alive is showing at Arter in Istanbul until 24th September
Make sure to collect your Yamos on the gowithYamo app when you visit!
The most comprehensive exhibition of Cengiz Çekil (1945-2015), considered one of the pioneer artists of conceptual art in Turkey, continues at Arter until 24th September. Curated by Eda Berkmen and spread over the two floors of Arter, the exhibition features the artist’s works from different periods, some of which are on view for the first time. Çekil’s works draw on universal issues that shape people’s lives, such as death, time and energy, as well as politics, media and religion. The exhibition title, I Am Still Alive, is inspired by the artist's work 'Diary' (1976), which forms part of MoMA's collection. For this work, Çekil stamps the phrase ‘I AM STILL ALIVE’ diagonally on a notebook every day with the dates for two months and completes the work by stamping the phrase ‘I AM GOING TO THE ARMY' on the last page of the notebook on the day he was going to join the army. The work alludes to the political instability and polarization as well as the economic difficulties, prohibitions and oppression in Turkey in the 1970s, and shows that life continues despite all odds.
Known for his ability to always create possibilities within impossibilities, Çekil was born and raised in 1945 in the Bor district of Niğde, located in the Central Anatolia Region of Turkey. The views and way of life of his father had a great influence on the artist; within the limited possibilities of life in the town, his father's ability to produce creative solutions with used materials spread to Çekil, and he started to produce toys with everyday materials from an early age. This practical creativity and manual dexterity, which existed from an early age, laid the groundwork for Çekil's ideas about becoming an artist. After graduating from Gazi University in Ankara, a school established with the mission of training educators in different disciplines of art, he worked as a primary school teacher in the province of Van in the Eastern Anatolia Region of Turkey, before traveling to Paris in 1970 to study for his second degree.
During his stay in Paris, Çekil had the opportunity to establish close ties with conceptual art, and was greatly influenced by Minimalism, Arte Povera, New Realism and the Fluxus movement. His professor Etienne Martin and artists such as Marcel Duchamp and Joseph Beuys were among his other sources of inspiration. In Paris, the artist entered a period in which he began to use objects by detaching them from their contexts and also to think about concepts such as matter, heat and energy.
In this exhibition, the first work encountered is Obsession, which consists of a pencil case with an open mouth in the centre of a wooden frame and linen threads resembling a spider web around it. The leather pencil case, which forms the focus of the work and resembles the female genitalia, signifies the excitement of the act of creation as well as the attraction of discovery, while the threads surrounding it create a tense appearance resembling a dangerous trap. With this work, Çekil establishes an analogy between sexuality and reproduction by associating the pleasure of reproduction with a sexual object, revealing the mysterious side of reproduction and drawing attention to the dangerous and tense aspects of this act.
Another work that draws attention with its use of ready-made objects is the installation Towards Childhood, Since Childhood, located in the next room. Made by the artist while he was studying in Paris, the work was shown for the first time at Çekil's debut solo exhibition in Paris, Réorganisation pour une exposition [Reorganisation for an Exhibition], held in 1975 on the ground floor of a bar called Le Métronome. The artwork consists of twelve Coca-Cola bottles arranged in rows of four. For the work, Çekil places light bulbs in the mouths of the bottles and illuminates them with batteries in the base of the bottles. He also fixes the bottles on wooden sticks with tape and ropes, giving them the appearance of sleds. This work, in which we can see the influence of Beuys in formal and intellectual terms, was made in 1974 when the Vietnam War was nearing its end. With this artwork Çekil was inspired by the creative tactics used by North Vietnam against the Americans within very limited possibilities, inspiring him to arrange the Coca-Cola bottles, the symbol of America's cultural and economic imperialism, in a manner that resembles a Molotov cocktail or explosive.
The political context in Turkey and the world, as well as its reflections on himself and society, are among the important qualities that characterise Çekil's works. Reflecting the testimony of the period he lived through in his works, Çekil is also known for his critical and ironic works from time to time. The artist has been subjected to political investigations many times, and frequently experienced the violent dimension of this. His work therefore responds to the corruptions of social structures with art and reflects the artist’s belief that art has a healing and transformative function. Produced in this context, the installation Smashed into Pieces (1998) is spread over a large area in the last room of the upper floor and consists of 288 moulds of different parts of the human body painted in yellow gilding. The installation, in which each body part is exhibited on a separate cloth and is organised as a square in its entirety, is reminiscent of the dismembered body parts scattered as a result of massacre. Pointing to the value and uniqueness of each human life as each limb is carefully painted with yellow gilding, through this installation, Çekil makes a gesture honouring human life, so frequently disregarded in mass action events.
In order to get to know the artist better, the video work Cengiz Çekil School (1995-2015) should be watched before going downstairs or at the end of the exhibition. Produced by Vahap Avşar, Çekil's student and now a well-known artist in his own right, the video consists of visual and audio recordings of interviews between Çekil and Avşar. Watching the 9-hour video viewers have the opportunity to witness Çekil's ideas in his own voice and image.
Mashallah, one of Çekil's works with critical and ironic tones, is located on the wall near the ceiling while descending the stairs. The word 'MAŞAALLAH' is written in both the Latin and Arabic alphabet, and utilises the colours of the evil eye beads, yellow, blue and white. Being an Arabic word ‘Mashallah’, which means ‘What Allah wishes happens, what He/She does not wish does not happen’ is interpreted as a critical point of view on the fatalistic approach of the Turkish people to phenomena, since the work was produced at a politically tense time during the 12 September coup of 1980 in Turkey.
The lower floor of the exhibition mainly includes works related to the concept of time; one of these works titled 1200 Watches consists of 1200 strapless wristwatches that Çekil collected from flea markets. All these watches, which are placed on a glass table, are attached to navy blue cardboards with silver threads and the artist's name and surname are written on each cardboard in his handwriting. Among all these piles of clocks that have run out of mechanical life, only one clock works and shows the correct time, which is noticed only by attentive visitors. In addition to its function of organising time as a quantitative measure in modern life, the concept of the clock as an object of remembrance and its relation to death has an important place in Çekil's artistic practice. Another reason for Çekil's interest in clocks is that his father, whom he values very much, was a clock repairman; the artist states that the more he works with clocks, the more he feels like he is spending time with his father.
As the title of the exhibition suggests, Çekil is still “alive” today through his works that are still up to date, and Arter’s exhibition stands as an unmissable opportunity to take a closer look at Çekil's brave and experimental 40 years of production.
Cengiz Çekil: I Am Still Alive is showing at Arter in Istanbul until 24th September
Make sure to collect your Yamos on the gowithYamo app when you visit!
