As part of Sarkis’s ongoing solo exhibition SONSUZ (Infinite) at Arter, an exhibition tour will be led by the exhibition’s curator, Emre Baykal, on the evening of Thursday 26 October 2023 at 19:00. Focusing on the works on display and on the concepts and themes the exhibition explores, the event will also leave room after the tour for participants to share their questions and personal impressions.
Sarkis, who keeps his works – designed to exist alongside a space, to take on spatial references or associations, or to construct a new space – open to change and interpretation each time they are shown, brings together works selected from those in the institution’s collection for the first time in his Arter exhibition SONSUZ, opening up a new space of life and experience for them in Arter’s second-floor gallery.
Spanning a broad period of Sarkis’s output, from the 1980s through to various parts of Respiro, the installation he created for the Pavilion of Turkey at the 2015 Venice Biennale, SONSUZ highlights concepts and themes that frequently accompany the artist’s work – heating, burning, camouflage, memory, leaving traces, the studio, the home – as well as the leading role that elements such as light, colour and music play in his practice. In SONSUZ, Sarkis reinstalls at Arter İstanbul İkonaları (Istanbul Icons, 1986–2023), Elle Danse (1990), Transflammation (1996–2001), Karışık Retrospektif (Mixed Retrospective, 2001) and (Arılara) Çağrı I (Call (to the Bees) I, 2013), together with the mirrors and neons of Respiro, which he donated to the Arter Collection in 2021, carrying their memories of other times and places, and reinterprets each within the whole they form in the space. In the introductory section of the exhibition, which features the artist’s works in the Arter Collection, two new works produced especially for SONSUZ are also shown to the public for the first time. The black fingerprints that Sarkis asked members of the exhibition team to leave on the wall – evoking a period laden with political turmoil, natural disasters and painful losses – are lightened by the white feathers of the wheelchair that stands beside them as if ready to move at any moment, and further into the exhibition a door to hope is opened by the light and colours reflected from Respiro.
The event will focus on the works shown in SONSUZ, which features the artist’s works in the Arter Collection, and on the concepts and themes the exhibition explores. Participation is free, but registration is required by emailing [email protected].
