Cengiz Çekil, Nilbar Güreş hold parallel exhibitions at Rampa

ISTANBUL

Cengiz Çekil’s work comprising 144 pieces, manipulates the formal dynamics of the medium of painting. Nilbar Güreş’s works are charged with the pastoral atmosphere as a conceptual background.

Cengiz Çekil’s new work, comprising 144 pieces, manipulates the formal dynamics of the medium of painting. Repetition, an important motif in the artist’s work, is placed at the center of this series. The form consists of a cleaning cloth, canvas, pieces of string, and hooks. On the background is paint and lace, differentiated from each other within the systems that Çekil has constructed based on the color of the paint and the different types of lace. This new work can be traced back to Çekil’s Obsession of 1974.

Craftsmanship in Çekil’s works

The obsession that Çekil had expressed in a one-of installation before is now repeated over and over again, simultaneously inhabited by craftsmanship and automatized serial productions. The quotidian and domestic nature of the material is in conflict with the systems and numbers that the artist has constructed. The artist internalizes the ruthless autonomy of the female that he takes as his subject in this body of work. Born in 1945, Cengiz Çekil grew up in Bor, in Central Turkey. He received his BFA from Gazi Institute of Education in Ankara, and went on to study at École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris. There he held his first solo exhibition “Réorganisation pour une Exposition”, in the basement of a café in 1975. He returned to Turkey in 1976 and received an MFA in Sculpture from Ege University in İzmir.

His first solo exhibition at Rampa was held between May-July 2010. Curated by Vasıf Kortun, the project comprised works produced between 1974 and 2010. Çekil participated in noteworthy exhibitions such as “NEWTOPIA: The State of Human Rights”, Mechelen, Belgium (2012); “I’m Still Alive: Politics and Everyday Life in Contemporary Drawing” MoMA, NY, USA (2011); “What Keeps Mankind Alive?”, 11th International Istanbul Biennial, Turkey (2009); “…With All Due Intent”, Manifesta 5, San Sebastian, Spain (2004); “Orient-ation”, 4th International İstanbul Biennial, Turkey (1995); State Museum of Painting and Sculpture, Ankara, Turkey (1967). Çekil lives and works in Istanbul. In 2012 the inaugural edition of Frieze Masters, the first fair for historical art organized by Frieze, which took place on Gloucester Green in London’s Regent’s Park featured Turkish artist Cengil Çekil.

Çekil at Frieze Art Fair 2012

Çekil’s works were exhibited at the Spotlight part of the fair, which is curated by Adriano Pedrosa, the curator of the 12th Istanbul Biennial. Among 22 artists that were selected for the exhibition, the only Turkish artist is Çekil.” Cengil Çekil’s exhibition is on display along with Nilbar Güreş at Rampa Art Gallery.

Nilbar Güreş’ “Open Phone Booth” On the other hand, Nilbar Güreş’s installation Open Phone Booth, consisting of video and photographs, and premiered in the fall of 2011 at the Frieze Art Fair, will be exhibited for the first time in Turkey at Rampa Gallery’s project space on Şair Nedim Avenue. Open Phone Booth is situated at a very critical point in the practice of the artist, who lives between Vienna, New York and Istanbul. Stripped of personal references, this work is transformed into a contemporary “social realist” painting; it is inspired by observations and experiences in one of the Alevi-Kurdish villages in Bingöl, still deprived of basic infrastructural elements such as roads, water, and telephone.

The photographs are charged with the pastoral atmosphere as a conceptual background; they are brought together by the aesthetic contradictions, isolated from the daily life of the village, pragmatic applications that deserve commendation for the use of materials and functionality, and poetic meaning.

The three-channel video installation opens up with multiple perspectives the ironic situation that arises by the switchboard that was brought in the 1970s and became dysfunctional in the 1980s due to the conflicts in the region.

The videos become a portrait of the villagers who in order to use the cell phones—accessible to almost everyone—go up to the hills to be within the “reception area.” In the video projections, the villagers seek a high enough point with good reception around the village to connect with the outside world; going up and down, they share with us their troubles, their anxiety to congratulate the holidays or their moments of confiding with their close ones.

In this sense, Open Phone Booth affords us a lucid reading of today through the frameworks of economic transformation, communication technologies, the understanding of social government and civil rights, functioning as a lens that show the situation within shifting values. The exhibtion of both artists are display until October 26 at Rampa Gallery.