Is art ‘true’ enough?

HATİCE UTKAN ÖZDEN

A philosophical question stands in the center of mentalKLINIK’s new exhibition. This time, the duo asks what truth is and how one can gauge the truthfulness of something. Once again, the duo tries to find a new approach to a postmodern question. The works in the exhibition reflect on the essence of truth, meanwhile making the viewer contemplate whether they are true or not. This time, mentalKLINIK plays with the ambiguity of truth and how this changes reality and surroundings.

According to the duo, “Truish” is a state rather than a question. “A ‘state’ that is blurry, slippery and uncertain. A cloud where we feel lost in senses, anxious to feel and depressive about our state of being. Our mysterious relationship with technology camouflages the doorways between image and object, information and material and the energies that bind our bodies with our souls,” they said during an interview with Hürriyet Daily News.

In the exhibition, the duo takes on a new approach and shows us how slippery “truth” is and our understanding of this concept.

“It is not the mission of the artist to tell the truth. How can art lie when reality is not true enough?” said the duo.

In a way, they criticize the notion of truth that we experience in our daily lives and this also leads us to a life dominated by
capitalism.

“We are interested in the seduction of capitalism and its hidden camouflage. We show the madness in our lives today and we also have fun with it. And we celebrate the suspended end of capitalism,” they added.

In the gallery, they have created an atmosphere that feels alien with a surreal ground that feels slippery. “When you enter Truish, you’re seduced by the shifting-colors, reflections, glitter and movements of the robotic cleaner,” they said, adding that if you want, you can go through the exhibition “taking selfies, Instagramming etc.”

Zeitgeist of ‘now’

It is possible to say that what makes mentalKLINIK most interesting is that it is the zeitgeist of now. The duo works with a retrospective point of view of the future, transposing the possibilities of the future into today, adding their own questions in this process.

Sometimes, they use metaphors for truth and sometimes they reflect the truth in our faces and let us deal with it.

The works in the exhibition play a vital role in showing a metaphor of truth and the present time we are actually living in. Meanwhile, we question the truth of the present. The works show a new aspect of the truthfulness of art.

In the neon work “Are You Popular Enough?,” the duo has created an uncanny and overwhelming environment that takes a jab at reality (and art) by navigating a slippery slope from the truth.

On the other hand, pastel colored frames around the covers of Time magazine, which are overlaid with cheaply produced stickers and popular emojis, are also a reference to the understanding of truth and its interpretation in popular culture.