Five artists, who participated in the guest artist program of the Turkey Workshop, which was hired by the Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts (İSKV) for 20 years in 2009 for the Cite Internationale des Arts, one of the most established art institutions of Paris, will come together at the exhibition "Idlers." Istanbul Biennial Director Bige Örer curates the exhibition at the French Cultural Center, running Sept. 13 to Nov. 3.
Coordinated by İSKV, "Idlers," which displays work inspired by idleness, includes the work of five female artists: Aslı Çavuşoğlu, İnci Furni, Güneş Terkol, Yasemin Özcan and İz Öztat & Zişan, who worked at the Paris Cite des Arts Turkey Workshop at various times.
Walking plays a determinant role in the exhibition, which the artists create, starting from their interaction with the city as well as the studio they live in. The artists, who question walking in its philosophical, geo
graphical, spiritual, social, political and literary meanings, enable idlers to witness unexpected situations by turning different angles and streets of the city into an extraordinary experiment, turning the walking route into a memory. The main focus of "Idlers" is the idle figure appearing as an important figure in French literary culture in Paris during the 19th century and which later became a supernatural and universal character.
In the "Idlers" exhibition, Furni will create a house for birds in the building's yard with a space-specific layout. Working with birdhouses for a long time, Furni's birdhouse will mimic the architecture of the French Cultural Center building to scale.
Terkol will exhibit her newly produced work, "Beautiful Days," on the French Cultural Center's exterior side facing İstiklal Street. Organizing a workshop by talking about experiences, traumas and dreams of women who have migrated to Istanbul for different reasons, Terkol turns the emotions and dreams of participants of being an immigrant and a woman in the city and their living environment into a collective artwork by making them use paper, pencil or fabric.
Çavuşoğlu, who has worked with various materials and in different areas before, will have two pieces in the exhibition from different periods, "Muthoscapes" and"Teslim6." While Çavuşoğlu goes after legends and points to different historical writings and story with "Muthoscapes," she refers to the profound relation that idleness establishes with literature in "Teslim6."
Taking place with an artist book ("Weather like Lemonade"), Özcan will encourage visitors to establish repetitive links between female/male and visible/invisible in public space with anecdotes that she has shaped with her masterful language and strong sense of humor.
Öztat joins the exhibition by collaborating with Zişan, whom she sees as a historical figure and an alter ego for her installation, "Tö." This installation, which is an installation of the intercession of Acephale and Zişan, an avant-garde experiment in Paris in the 1930s, consists of newly produced work with mixed media.
Opening night, Özcan will perform a presentation titled "The Heart of Flanöz" at 7:30 p.m. Erdin, Öztekin and Terkol's new group, GuGuOu, will give a performance that they developed about walking, disappearance and idleness in the city at the opening program at 8:15 p.m.
In the book designed by Güven, there is an introductory text written by Bige Örer about the exhibition along with the text written by Özgüven about the idleness experiences of women writing in Turkish. In addition to these texts, there is an interview with the artists and curator.
About Cite Internationale des Arts
The Turkish Workshop, which was hired by İSKV in 2009 for 20 years at the Cite Internationale des Arts, one of the most established art institutions in Paris, offers artists of different disciplines an opportunity to live and work in Paris for three months.
Having hosted 31 artists from Turkey since 2009, Cite des Arts provides accommodation opportunities to 350 artists from two months to a year in private studios. In addition to its exhibition halls, rehearsal rooms and concert and show areas, it offers the chance of self-improvement and active production to artists with various studios. Germany has 20 studios, Switzerland has 17, China has 16, Japan has 14 and Iran has four at the institution, which hosts artists from various regions and disciplines.
