In Tayfun Serttaş‘s solo exhibition ‘The Other The Other and Beyond’, Kalfayan Galleries will present the artist’s video performance of the same name, which consists of film recordings of 30 buildings that once belonged to minorities in Istanbul and are now abandoned. Legal battles over the ownership of these buildings, which belonged to members of Istanbul’s Greek, Armenian and Jewish communities, are still pending. Scattered across various historic districts of the city, with distinctive sculpted façades, they hold a special place in the collective urban memory, even though they are no longer in use. Alongside the images of these buildings, viewers watch excerpts from a performance by the artist with allegorical references to traditional Turkish cooking and cooking rituals. As the artist observes:
“Allegory, as a visual and literary method, is based on representing situations, people and objects in various forms through fictional narrative. The main difference between allegorical narrative and other kinds of narrative is that the former is self-referential, and does so in the most indirect way, creating chains of meaning outside the story it is dealing with. And in cases where direct narration is impossible, allegory comes in not simply as an artistic choice but as a necessary mechanism.”
“The work The Other The Other and Beyond (2005) is a kind of decoding, based on details of my own history, and I dedicate it to all personal histories. It is part of the projection of my personal struggle against the antithetical allegory of a historical reality which, for many years, I was allowed to narrate only allegorically.”
Tayfun Serttaş (b. 1982, Turkey) is a visual artist, writer and researcher who lives and works in Istanbul and Bodrum. His multifaceted work is based on the notion of installation as an art form, using a variety of means of expression (ready-mades, objects, sculpture, video, photography, artist’s books, painting). The artist approaches each subject on the basis of extensive research into written and other sources. He studied Social Anthropology at the University of Istanbul (his undergraduate thesis in 2004 was on “Urban Anthropology”). In 2007 he completed his postgraduate studies at Yildiz Technical Univercity (thesis topic: “Photography and Minorities in Istanbul in Relation to Modernism and Cultural Representation”). He has shown his work in solo and group exhibitions and, from 2000 to the present, has taken part in numerous academic programmes, both in Turkey and abroad. The subjects he deals with include the following: urban anthropology, gender, cultural heritage, critique of urban society, sociology of everyday life, prostitution, minorities, urban transformation, migration, socio-political strategies and micro-politics. Residency programmes: AIF Residency Program, Arab Image Foundation (2011, Beirut, Lebanon); Accented Residency Program, The Delfina Foundation (2010, London, England); Istanbul Artist Residency Program, Platform Garanti Contemporary Art Center (2009, Istanbul, Turkey). In 2011 the artist’s works will be presented at the 3rd Thessaloniki Biennale of Contemporary Art and in the artist’s solo exhibition organised by Kalfayan Galleries as part of ReMap3.
ReMap3
Duration: 12/9-30/10/2011
Opening: Monday 12/9, 17:00
(Free admission)
