Beyond Surfaces is a photographic project—the images are not staged nor are they particularly vivid with motion. The latent dormancy of the images is neutralized by the particularity of the compositions; there is a specificity that is tender and personal. The sense of mundanity is offset by the slightly askew aesthetics. The off-beatness is such that temporality is brought in to the work. These are not street shots of novelty; these are images of familiarity—an extended kinship. The cars are anchors that visually cohere Kurceren’s narrative. He photographs a very specific place at a very specific time and yet the photographs are not images of documentation but rather of his relationship with the space. The history of the street aesthetic in photography, as it evolved from the geometric drama of Garry Winogrand to the awkwardness of Paul Graham, is absorbed and diluted into the muted palette and visuality of the images. It might be appropriate to thus interpret the title of the project, Beyond Surfaces, as not only referring to the surface of the images in question, but also the surface of our understanding of this particular genre of photography, that is somehow estranged in this body of work.
—Merve Ünsal