Incremental Change
Meriç Algün Ringborg, Olof Olsson, Pilvi Takala, Erdem Taşdelen
Galeri Non
November 17–December 24, 2012
In differentiating mankind as a species, one could point out that humans speak, they create stories and believe in them, which has in turn concrete consequences in behavior and reality. Self-fulfilling prophecy is what comes to mind while strolling inside the works of the four artists at Galeri Non, each of them occupying clearly delineated spaces. We are witnessing processes of self-inflicted change as each artist creates and explores transitory spaces between fiction and reality. The performance is in the subtle interventions they operate into the shared expectations and beliefs that define our contemporary world, exposing and destabilizing them.
—Aslı Seven

Tenuto
Christodoulos Panayiotou
Rodeo
November 23, 2012–January 13, 2013

In Tenuto, Panayiotou’s sculptural works are installed sparsely, creating moments of pause that are as suggestive as dialogue. The artist is preoccupied with how identities and historical narratives are articulated, made visible, and subverted. Here, Panayiotou produces objects that evoke rituals: he makes Byzantine icons with golden background that are devoid of religious figures; crafts Cypriot-style ceramic pots with seawater instead of pumping water; and reassembles replicas of Syrian mosaics to the point of abstraction, deforming motifs with cultural connotations. In these works, Panayiotou accentuates the impact of absence and quietness by using repetition—grasping patterns, and eroding their meaning at the same time.
—Özge Ersoy

Sevil Tunaboylu
Sanatorium
December 11, 2012–January 19, 2013

In Sevil Tunaboylu’s exhibition, the modus operandi of painting is hung to dry; the artist deciphers the representational guess-game of what is what and confronts viewers with a web of figures, relationships, and situations that ring true and yet are detached from what we see and experience through the specific color palette employed. In other words, Tunaboylu’s take on painting is self-reflexive as she produces on the border of hyper vivacity of photorealist painting and just utter bizarreness. As she traces patterns and rituals of genders in society, the viewer is seduced by the sheer visual pleasure while the subtext is anything but that.
—Merve Ünsal

Istanbul Eindhoven-SALTVanAbbe: Modern Times
SALT Galata
September 21–December 30, 2012
Modern Times, the last exhibition of a series of collaboration between SALT and Van Abbemuseum, focuses on the early twentieth century and brings it up to 1960s. The exhibition takes a critical view to art history and the process of modernization. It intertwines the works of art produced and narrated from the West and Turkey in the same period. It, thus, reveals how cultural modernization is produced, perceived, and interpreted differently by the two sides—so-called center and periphery. The exhibition also includes archival and documentary material from the same period that helps viewers understand how the cultural realm is influenced by the current social, political and economic conditions.
—İlhan Ozan