DVD exhibit opens a new dimension in Turkish art

ISTANBUL

Ferhat Özgür’s work is among the works that include in DVD exhibition.

Volume 2 of TREIBSAND, published in November 2012 and curated by Susann Wintsch, is a digital art exhibition that focuses on contemporary art in Istanbul. The DVD not only showcases the art pieces but also features statements by those involved in the world of arts and culture, reflecting important aspects of society and giving insight into art and its discourses. 

Titled “Devam Etmeye Devam” (Keep On Keeping On), the digital collection contains the work of 33 artists of different generations, raising questions about the history of the future, justice and ways of co-existing. Though these questions have been posed throughout time, the issues are developed and expressed through the lens of contemporary aesthetics. The work in Volume 2 comprises a wide range of approaches from political to poetic, conceptual to narrative. They were selected in close collaboration with the artist Necla Rüzgar, who lives and works in Ankara and Istanbul.

Each volume of TREIBSAND explores a different metropolis in an effort to understand the artistic culture that contributes to its inventive potential. Over a period of two years, Susann Wintsch visited scores of artists’ studios, galleries and art institutions in order to gather information for the project to evolve and mature. During this process she collaborated with an internationally acclaimed artist with comprehensive knowledge about the metropolis’s progressive, agile art community.

The final product of the process was a curated exhibition on DVD. It presents an elaborate selection of artwork (photography, audio and video work, etc) as well as monographic essay films on a succession of paintings, drawings, sculptures, installations and performances by an individual artist chosen by the curators. The DVD is accompanied by a booklet providing information about the participating artists and their work in English, German and the language of the metropolis. 

TREIBSAND’s exhibitions on DVD provide visual memory spaces for contemporary art. Displayed on a DVD, they travel easily around the globe carrying artistic knowledge both for professional use and for any person with access to a computer, laptop or DVD player.

Volume 2 of TREIBSAND will be available at SALT Galata Istanbul on Nov. 2 2012, and be available in museums, bookshops as well as for ordering online at www.treibsand.ch. 

The forthcoming Volume “Keep on Keeping on / Devam Etmeye Devam Contemporary Art in Istanbul” curated together with Necla Rüzgar will be released in November 2012. In September 2013 Susann Wintsch will be curating a broad exhibition on Contemporary Positions in Iranian Art in collaboration with Museum Rietberg in Zurich.

Art from Tehran

Not only Turkish but also Iranian art is a focus of DVD exhibtion. Analyzing While Waiting (For Time to Pass): Contemporary Art in Tehran sheds light on contemporary and emerging art in Tehran, concentrating predominantly on an analytical stance in times of waiting. Waiting for the future may be expressed as yearning or depression, or it may appear as a long, protracted period in which past and present are analyzed in depth from a personal and post-colonialist viewpoint. In search of the utopias generated by art, Parastou Forouhar and Susann Wintsch embarked on this project with no particular preconceived concept in mind.