Video artist goes to Venice for Biennial

ISTANBUL - Hürriyet Daily News

Ali Kazma has been chosen to represent Turkey at the 55th International Art Exhibition of the Venice Biennale in 2013.

The artist, who has won a number of prestigious international art awards, will create works for Turkey’s pavilion, which will be curated Emre Baykal with the coordination of the Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts (İKSV). Baykal previously curated Ali Kazma’s exhibition “Obstructions” at the YKY Kâzım Taşkent Art Gallery in 2010.

Born in 1971, in Istanbul, Ali Kazma completed his undergraduate studies in the United States. After briefly studying photography in London, he returned to the U.S. to study film. He received his master’s degree from the New School in New York City where he worked as a teaching assistant.
Ali Kazma was granted the 2001 UNESCO Award for the Promotion of the Arts; later, he received the 2010 Nam June Paik Award from the North Rhine-Westphalia Art Foundation in the field of media art in honor of his “Obstructions” series, which he had been working on since 2005. His videos raise fundamental questions about the meaning and significance of human activity and labor, the meaning of economy, production and social organization.