Land art comes to Elgiz Museum

ISTANBUL - Hürriyet Daily News

Elgiz Museum will host a land art project by Andrew Rogers. ‘Winding Path – The Search for Truth,’ will be displayed in an open-air sculpture park.

Elgiz Museum of Contemporary Art will be hosting an art project less ordinary next month when famous landscape artist Andrew Rogers opens a labyrinth on the site’s terrace.

The project, titled the “Winding Path – The Search for Truth,” will be displayed in a 1,500-square-meter open-air sculpture park.

“In this project the search of reality is based on an idea rather than a structure,” said Rogers, who has also worked in Cappadocia, as well as different venues in Istanbul.

Rogers will create an ephemeral stone labyrinth with the assistance of Istanbul locals on the museum terrace. Preparations for the maze will start three days before the scheduled opening on April 18 with the participation of students and neighbors that wish to join in on the project.

The central question for Rogers is: “If we have regard for our Earth, what should be the criteria we live by?”

“Titled ‘Winding Path, a Search for Truth,’ this is a labyrinth about an idea, not a structure,” the artist said in explaining his quest. “It is about the importance of perspective that we are caretakers and have responsibilities to those around us and those who will follow. We receive the environmental consequences created by our predecessors. In turn, we leave a consequence for our descendants. The present will be reflected in the future. We are all connected through people and places, time and space.”

The ephemeral stone labyrinth at the museum will be a small scale replica of the giant granite labyrinth located in the Kaligandaki Valley Gorge, near Jomsom in Nepal, the deepest gorge on Earth. There, the labyrinth faces the sacred snow-covered Nilgiri Mountain which soars 7,000 meters above sea level. It is also adjacent to the sacred Kaligandaki river. Rogers constructed the labyrinth in April 2008 with the assistance of 450 local people.

An exhibition of photographs of Rogers’ “Time and Space: Rhythms of Life land art project” – the largest contemporary land art project in the world comprising 48 stone structures in 13 countries across seven continents involving over 6,700 people over 14 years – will also be displayed in the museum’s project rooms.

Both shows can be visited at the Proje4L/Elgiz Museum of Contemporary Art Istanbul until June 8.