"(applause)"
PILEVNELI Dolapdere
May 22 - July 6, 2019
PILEVNELI Gallery is pleased to present a new body of work by Bora Akinciturk, on view at its Dolapdere location in Istanbul between May 22 - July 6, 2019. The exhibition titled “(applause)” is the artist’s second solo show with the gallery since he joined in 2017. Akinciturk will debut new paintings, a new sculpture and an installation which will act as an epilogue for the previous show he had with the gallery last year.
Akinciturk is known for his engaging works in a wide variety of media including painting, draw- ing, sculpture, installation and video. His work addresses ideas from the world of the internet and deals with themes such as apocalypse, internet culture & aesthetics, social arrangements, feelings and expression in the digital age.
The new series of canvases consist of oil paintings of Photoshop collages the artist has made a few years ago and outsourced last year in the village of Dafen in southern China. Dafen is an artist village for the production of replicas of masterworks and outsourcing of original art cre- ation. This approach of production combines to create mixed-up narratives apparently intended for mass distribution, production and consumption. The works look intentionally readymade and almost anonymous, mimicking online content. Most of them are composed of photos taken by the artist and material found online combined with the artists drawings.
The new installation will be the burnt version of the tent which was shown last year for the artist’s first solo with the gallery titled “I’m So Happy Because”. The tent installation had con- tained a chaotic habitat of a young millennial, which will now be burnt down as a sequel and exhibited at the same spot.
The new sculpture “A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man” is a 3D Polyamide print modeled af- ter a drawing by Akinciturk. The sculpture is of a more or less cartoonish manga style boy care- lessly laying on the floor smoking a cigarette. The smoke coming up from the cigarette materializes into the text “société” loosely linking to the “we live in a society” meme. The sculpture also hints that the smoking boy might be the resident of the tent, might be responsible for the fire or maybe if not responsible, definitely might be the indifferent survivor.
Realized under the support of Privee PR, Jotun, Nespresso and Mutlubiev.
