Carlos Aires
Carlos Aires unveils the contemporary through the lens of catastrophe, thrusting it into the spot- light with the gaze of historical and anonymous figures. His practice unfurls societal complexities through a contemporary narrative, decoding the very 'cultural' codes that shape our knowledge. Within his works, individual memories, music, material culture, consumer habits, cinema, and the emotions of fear and love intertwine, inviting contemplation of their intricate dance. Aires courageously scrutinises urgent social problems, challenging the principal institutions and figures that wield today's hegemonic power. His works exist in a realm of duality, where the wicked coexist with the passionate, the complex with the playful, fashioning a universe ripe for exploration.
The paperwork that takes place in ArtDubai 2024, ****Fly me to the Moon is part of the series 'Love Songs for Times of Crisis,' which features large-format images sourced from banknotes of various countries. These images cleverly conceal and create a camouflage of the complete lyrics of love songs from the artist's personal or autobiographical discography, celebrating the universal power of music and its lyrical expressions.
The wall installation entitled Bon Appetit III is displayed as an installation consisting of porcelain glazed plates that depicts various political figures and leaders of several countries. The work appears almost like a flower of traditional decorative plates hung on the wall. Aires chose to work with plates with reference to the big culinary tradition of Spanish lunch breaks which is considered as the most prominent of meals. In harmony with its acclaimed place within the daily meal schedule, the news agencies in Spain deliver the most significant updates, including the portraits of various political figures bombarded on screen.
Carlos Aires obtained a bachelor in Fine Arts at the University of Granada in Spain. Upon graduat- ing in 1997, he moved to the Netherlands and completed his postgraduate studies at Fontys Academy (The Netherlands), HISK (Belgium) and Ohio State University (USA). He was honoured with prestigious grants and awards, including: Edith Fergus Gilmore Award (USA), Generation2008 Caja Madrid (Spain), Young Belgian Art Prize (Belgium), 1st Award Young Andalusian Artists (Spain), Fulbright (USA) and De Pont Atelier (the Netherlands). He has participated in numerous exhibitions in national and international institutions, such as: MACBA (Barcelona, Spain), Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art (USA), Imperial Belvedere Palace (Vienna, Austria), MUSAC (Leon, Spain), BB6 Bucharest International Biennale (Bucharest, Romania), B.P.S. 22 (Charleroi, Belgium), 5th Thes- saloniki Biennale (Thessaloniki , Greece), Museo de Arte Carrillo Gil (Mexico City, Mexico), Canada Contemporary Art Museum (Montreal, Canada).His work can be found within significant public collections: ARTIUM (Spain), MACBA (Spain), Les Abattoirs-FRAC Occitanie (France), ARTER (Tur- key), CAC (Spain), Maison Particulière (Belgium), Ministry of Culture of Spain, Progress Art (Saudi Arabia),National Belgium Bank (Belgium), 21c Museum (USA), MAK (Austria) among others.
Alpin Arda Bağcık****
In his practice, Alpin Arda Bağcık delves into the relations between politics and media. How the truth can be manipulated and altered with the power of media and archives. In the two works that take place in ArtDubai 2024, Rileptid (2017) and Perseris (2024) Bağcık continues to question this relationship.
In the work titled Rileptid, Bağcık portrays a photo that was taken in 1913, the period between pre-World War I and World War II. During this period, the photographers built stages and provided arms equipment that enabled those with war fever to have their souvenir photographs taken. These staged photographs created ambiences for the war-enthusiasts to pretend to be in the trenches. Bağcık is interested in analysing the continuation of this ancient enthusiasm toward warfare with no sign of diminishment, with this work. He points out the eagerness about war of those in these photographs, even though they have never been soldiers, is parallel to those who are calling for war today.
Alpin Arda Bağcık (1988, İzmir, Turkey) graduated from the Painting Department at Dokuz Eylül University in 2007. He currently lives and works in Istanbul. His solo exhibitions and presentations include: Paranoid Fantasies, Real Plots (Zilberman, Istanbul, 2022), Apocryphon, (Zilberman, Istanbul, Turkey, 2019) Apocrypha (Zilberman, Berlin, Germany, 2019), Red Prescription (Zilberman, Istanbul, Turkey, 2017) and Ambivalence (Zilberman, Istanbul, Turkey, 2015). He has participated in various group exhibitions including: Politics in Art, (Museum of Contemporary Art in Krakow, Polland, 2022), Dry Summer (curator: Melike Bayık, Eldem Sanat Alanı, Eskişehir, Turkey), Recurrence 2 (curator: Lotte Laub, Zilberman, Berlin, Almanya, 2021), 6 Sanatçı Öncülünü Arıyor (curator: Hasan Bülent Kahraman, Akbank Sanat, Istanbul, Turkey, 2020), Unlock (Zilberman, Istanbul, Turkey, 2020), The Union: A Selection from the Erol Tabanca Collection, curator: Haldun Dostoğlu, OMM-Odunpazarı Modern Museum, Eskişehir, Turkey, 2019), Young Fresh Different 10: One Must Continue (curator: Burçak Bingöl, Zilberman, Istanbul, Turkey, 2019), Motherland in Art (MOCAK, Krakow, Poland, 2018), Darağaç III (Izmir, Turkey, 2018), Remote Memory (curator: Yaren Akbal, Abud Efendi Konağı, Istanbul, Turkey, 2018), Rotary Art Competition (Proje 4L, Istanbul, Turkey 2015), Borders and Orbits (Siemens Sanat, Istanbul, 2013), Violence (Contemporary Art Museum, Rethymnon, Crete, Greece, 2013), and Young Fresh Different-3 (Zilberman, Istanbul, 2012). His works are part of public and private collections, a.o., MOCAK Museum of Contemporary Art in Krakow (Krakow, Poland), 21c Museum Hotels (Kentucky, The USA), OMM – Odunpazarı Modern Museum (Eskişehir, Turkey), Salsali Museum (Dubai, UAE) and PAPKO ART Collection (Istanbul, Turkey).
Guido Casaretto
In his works, Guido Casaretto conveys the connection of humans to culture and geography through his own personal history, myths, science, and technology. The narrative he adopts does not follow any temporal and spatial linearity. The artist tries to distinguish between data and information; by revealing the differences between those who intervene and those who are not, those who come from nature and those who question the core function of art making which imitates nature. From the most ancient technique to the most complex technology ever used, he dissects and decomposes the act of art making, and examines and applies the dexterity- mastership required when re-arranging materials to create a new formation. In this direction, he leaves the result to the material itself, staying loyal to the limits, rules, and cultural histories of given tools and techniques. Therefore his use of materials is very diverse. As he puts art- making processes at the center of his productions both technically and intellectually, the phases he goes through comes to the forefront rather than the final output. Adopting the technique and acknowledging it as a guide which has been applied by someone else in the past as a manual, he repeats and imitates a series of irregular bodily movements as required by the technique. Consequently, the performative results can be followed in the final piece.
The artist's work titled A Few Came Back from Melbourne at the Art Dubai 2024, delves into the complexities of intergenerational cultural transmission and appropriation. The title is derived from the migration of a significant non-Muslim Turkish community to Melbourne in the aftermath of the World Wars. Through this work, the artist places rare objects from diverse cultures on a dresser, symbolising the convergence of disparate cultural narratives. The choice of the dresser, seemingly mundane, holds personal significance for the artist, whose own family was impacted by the exile. Through the arrangement of objects, Casaretto narrates the daily life of his ancestors, offering a glimpse into their experiences. Beyond their cultural and historical relevance, the artist physically deconstructs these objects, stripping them of their original function while augmenting their materiality to create a new narrative infused with historical context. This transformative process serves to both dismantle and reconstruct the objects, amplifying their significance within the broader discourse of cultural exchange and identity.
Guido Casaretto (b.1981) lives and works in Istanbul. He studied painting at the Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University in Istanbul, Turkey, and at the Bologna Fine arts Academy in Bologna, Italy. He is one of the founders of Sanatorium. His solo shows include: Of Goats, Scapes and Appropriations (Zilberman Gallery, Berlin, Germany, 2022), Crossing Carnevale (Zilberman Gallery, Istanbul, Turkey, 2021), The Ghosts of Matter (MOCAK, Krakow, Poland, 2019); The Pope and Galileo Had a Minor Disagreement (Zilberman, Istanbul, Turkey, 2017); Synesthesia (Zilberman, Istanbul, Turkey, 2015); Extrasystemic Correlations (Zilberman, Istanbul, Turkey, 2012); Default (Sanatorium, Istanbul, Turkey, 2011). His group shows include: At the End of the Day (OMM-Odunpazarı Modern Museum, Eskişehir, Turkey, 2021), Victoria National Gallery Triennial (Melbourne, Australia, 2020), Unlock (Zilberman Gallery, Istanbul, Turkey, 2020), The Union: A Selection from the Erol Tabanca Collection (curator: Haldun Dostoğlu, OMM- Odunpazarı Modern Museum, Eskisehir, Turkey, 2019), Part Whole. II, (Art On Istanbul, Turkey), Figure and Design (curators: Monika Kozio, Maria Anna Potocka MOCAK, Krakow, Polonya, 2018), Restless Monuments (Zilberman, Istanbul, Turkey, 2018); Urban ustice (CerModern, Ankara, Turkey, 2015); Venice Biennial Italian Pavillion (Venice, Italy, 2011) and Teatro Comunale (Italy, 2000). His work is included in the MOCAK–Museum of Contemporary Art in Kraków (Krakow, Poland), the National Gallery of Victoria (Melbourne, Australia) and further acclaimed private collections in Europe and Middle East.
Fatoş İrwen
Fatoş ****Irwen was born and raised in the historical Sûr neighborhood in Diyarbakır, Turkey. Having received her bachelor's degree in visual art department in Dicle University, Diyarbakır, she taught in secondary schools in Batman, Diyarbakır and then Istanbul for approximately ten years. The artist examines issues such as justice, power relations, belief systems and gender politics within her continuous production process spanning years. She creates works that focus on the effects of these matters on the individual and society in various fields such as video, photography, paint- ing, textile, installation and performance. Among the highlights of the artist's performance-based works are the reflections of the experiences of the individual on memory, subconscious and dreams, as well as the relationship between space and body.
Dancer Series reflects the artist's intention to resist the censorship and control mechanisms of the prison administration. While she was living under an intense censorship system regarding communication tools such as letters and books, Irwen asked her sister to send her prints from the Dancer Album of the old Bulvar Newspaper in the form of podcasts. In fact, this was a game that she initiated knowing that the cards would be found obscene and not given to her because of the prison administration's restrictions. After she was released from prison in 2020, she start- ed making interventions on these pictures and reinterpreted the images of the Dancer Album as bodies hidden between the wrinkles of sheets. Cracked Ground Series is dedicated to the base she created for herself while coping with censorship and interventions in the early days when she was trying to adapt to prison conditions. At a time when she was thinking about women's history, she re-functioned the materials that were left from the confiscated sources by the authorities. This series, which she stitched together with torn papers with her hair, created a connection not only with the prison history, but also with the women with whom she spent this process.
Fatoş Irwen is a visual artist who lives and works between Istanbul and Diyarbakır. Her solo shows are Sûr (Zilberman Berlin, 2023) and Exceptional Times curated by Ezgi Bakçay and Wenda Ko- yuncu (Karşı Sanat and DEPO, 2021). Her selected group shows include: 2019 curated by Yekhan Pınarlıgil (Zilberman Istanbul, 2023), Transit curated by Lotte Laub & Susanne Weiß (Zilberman Berlin, 2023), Of Paper curated by Selin Akın (Ferda Art Platform, Istanbul, 2021); Art in Dark Times (organized by bi'bak, Haus der Statistik, Berlin, Germany, 2020); Heritage / Matrimonio (curator: Gudrun Wallenböck, Gallery Enrique Guerrero, Mexico City, Mexico, 2019); Not What You Think! (Hinterland Galerie, Vienna, Austria, 2018); Post-Peace (curator: Katia Krupennikova, Württembergischer Kunstverein, Stuttgart, Germany, 2017).
Azade Köker
Prof. Azade Köker's earlier works are mainly concerned with identity and belonging. The artist proposes hybridity as an inevitable survival mechanism, which is achieved through a subjectivity based on discrepancy, transparency and vulnerability. In her later works, nature is negotiated as a cultural construct. She creates images of nature and cityscapes inhabited by traces of human intervention, which she then deconstructs by a repeating pattern on the surface. In works shown here at ArtDubai 2024, Șehir Labirenti and Jerusalem the artist delves into this dual relationship between environments. Through layering and reworking of the surface, she disrupts the perfection and legibility of the represented image and comments on the possibilities of paintings.
Azade Köker's works of art focus on the shape of nature to come. They don't focus on nature directly but on its image within society. Azade Köker works with chemically altered paper which she processes like a sculpture. She neither focuses on any colors nor photographs as counterparts. Processing it manually, she alienates the photographic paper manufactured by big industry: She tears the paper into pieces, gives these pieces a new form and recombines them. Her works are montages consisting of multiple layers. The transparency of the materials and the lucidity of the colors are important characteristics of this artistic realisation.
Another topic that Köker delves into repetitively is women and their space in society. Köker sees oppression of a woman as a form of control, exploitation, and violence. In her paper collage series Karneval (Carnival) and in Advice, Köker explores the oppression of women, by taking a node at witch-hunts in the early modern era, that broke women's control over reproduction and turned the female body into an instrument for the reproduction of the workforce.
Azade Köker (1949, Istanbul) lives and works between Berlin and Istanbul. She used to be a professor at the Braunschweig Technical University, Berlin, Germany. Her recent solo exhibitions include: Murder of a Mannequin (Zilberman, Istanbul, 2021), Verblendet (Zilberman, Berlin, 2018), Everywhere, Nowhere (Zilberman, Istanbul, 2016), Azade Köker (Proje 4L, Elgiz Museum, Istanbul, 2015), Moving Spaces (Zilberman, 2013), Human Nature (Milli Reasürans Art Gallery, Istanbul, 2007), Transparenz der Abwesentheit (Otto-Gallery, Münich, 2004), and Transparenz des Gartens (Kunstverein, Bielefeld, 2001); and her recent group exhibitions include: Interactions (Istanbul Modern Art Museum, 2021), At The End of the Day (OMM-Odunpazarı Modern Museum, Eskişehir, Turkey, 2020), Nature in Art (MOCAK, Krakow, Poland, 2019), The Spirit of the Poet (Zentrum für verfolgte Künste, Solingen, Germany, 2019), Ultrahabitat (Zilberman Berlin, 2016), Minor Heroism (Zilberman, İstanbul, 2015), Meeting Point (Kunstverein Konstanz, Germany, 2015) and Dream and Reality (Istanbul Modern, Istanbul, 2011).
Her works are in numerous public and corporate collections including Akbank, Istanbul; The British Museum, London; Berlinische Gallery, Berlin; Elgiz Museum of Contemporary Art, Istanbul; Lebendiges Museum, Berlin; John Michael Kohler Arts Center, Wisconsin; Istanbul Modern Muse- um. She has public sculptures in Cuvry-Brunnen (Berlin), Bundesgartenschau (Berlin), Menschen- landschaften (Berlin), Frechen Museum (Düsseldorf), Bremen-Nord Zentralkrankenhaus (Bremen), Schule am Barbarossaplatz (Berlin), Schlosspark (Wolfsburg), Building of Turkish Embassy (Japan), Altınpark (Ankara), Istanbul Stock Exchange (Istanbul), Aspat Art Park (Bodrum) and Park of German Embassy (Ankara).
Erinç Seymen
****Erinç Seymen's work looks at power relationships, and uses metaphors and anthropomorphic forms which coalesce to create a narrative that directly critiques and curtails modern and traditional hetero-normative realities. He cynically deals with the controversy and asymmetry stem- ming from the discrepancies in intentions, tracing the permanent impact of devotedness, shared values and the culture of belonging.
Comfort Zone A (2016) appropriates the gaze embedded within the cabinets of curiosities dis- played in natural history museums. This colonial gaze of taxonomy objectifies, categorises, and grants order to nature and its creatures. The display cabinet, or even the museum as an institutional dwelling, is a space of safe containment. The entitlement to look at nature surely comes from the privileged look of the white coloniser. In Comfort Zone A, the bug-creature itself turns into a cabinet of curiosities where the main object of curiosity it accommodates is the child, the sacralised object of heteronormativity. This privileged signifier of reproductive futurism becomes the object of progressive modernism's own colonising gaze, its own privileged point of view. The child becomes the creature, the terrifying spectacle of alterity to be looked at. The parodic reversal of gaze, which confines the sacralised embodiment of aspirational middle class family into a re- stricted room of play, subverts the optimistic attachment to racial and class privilege, and the idea of an upwardly mobile, good life. Life without exposure to risk is not life. Desire without risk is not desire. Seymen's world subverts the illusions and the myths of safety, privilege and sovereignty, and the optimistic attachments of homo fragilis to these myths.
Go Back to the Very Beginning (2017) aims to discuss the transformation of artisanship and professional craftsmanship attributed to minority identities, both as a functional medium of survival and an indicator of schematising societies. The professional skills have an affirmative emphasis which sometimes appear as titles for individuals or become their surnames. The drawing, that takes place in Art Dubai 2024, is part of an installation which comprises of one painting and one sculpture, invites the viewer to think about not only on this aspect but also on these skills' standardising and nostalgic effect on societies. Against the risk of depicting these inherited and legated crafts as two-dimensional and in a romantic type theatre, the exhibition points out to the necessity of emancipating the relationship between the type of profession/labour and the cultural identity from the reductionist perspective.
Some of his solo exhibitions are Homo Fragilis (Zilberman Gallery, Istanbul, 2017), Go Back To The Very Beginning (Galata Greek Primary School, Istanbul, 2017); The Seed and The Bullet (Rampa, Istanbul, 2012), Persuasion Room (Galerist, Istanbul, 2009), Man Jam curated by Aura Seikkula (Finnish Museum of Photography, Helsinki, 2007); Selected group exhibitions he participated in are: Locus Solus (Arter, İstanbul, 2021), The Child Within Me: A Selection from the Ömer Koç Collection (Abdülmecid Efendi Köşkü, Istanbul, 2019), A Day at Hotel (Zilberman Gallery, Istanbul, 2018), Appropriation Case (Yakı Kredi Kültür Sanat, İstanbul, 2018), ğ – the soft g curated by Emre Busse and Aykan Safoğlu (Schwules Museum, Berlin, 2017), OHNE (Mekan68 Vienna, 2016), Every Inclusion is an Exclusion of Other Possibilities II (SALT Beyoglu, Istanbul, 2015), VIVO with Ahmet Dogu Ipek, Kerem Ozan Bayraktar (Kasa Gallery Sabanci University, İstanbul, 2015), Plurivocality, Visual Arts and Music in Turkey (Istanbul Museum of Modern Art, Istanbul, 2014), Between The Lines, All Visual Arts (London, 2013), Panorama. Landscapes 2013-1969 (Museo del Palacio de Bellas Artes, Mexico City 2013), Berliner Herbstsalon (Maxim Gorki Theater, Berlin, 2013), Moods: A Generation that Goes off the Rails (Ecole Nationale Superieure des Beaux-Arts, Paris, 2010), İstanbul, traverse (Palais des Beaux Arts de Lille, Lille, 2009), I Myself am War! (Open Space, Vienna, 2008), An Atlas of Events (Foundation Calouste Gulbenkian, Lisbon, 2007); Along the Gates of Urban (K&S Galerie, Berlin, 2004).
Erinç Seymen lives and works in Istanbul.
Eşref Yıldırım
Eşref Yıldırım is inspired by media representations that suggest a critique of power structures and social taboos shaping society. He focuses on the lives of individuals who are often suffocated by the pressures of social hierarchies, prescribed gender roles, and racism. His continuous dialogue with painting and his choice of recycled materials become an inherent part of his attitude towards his art practice.
In his paintings and embroidery works he revitalises the memory of poets and writers that he reads. The layering technique that the artist has adopted for a long time in his paintings, makes visible the destruction time creates. Each layer makes up the portrait coming to the surface and gives the impression of a collection of parts obtained from different faces from different times. He also recreates verses of poets and writers by hand-knitting; he spares the intellectual time needed to create a text by dealing with a long, grueling performance like knitting, thus paying a kind of homage to the author he is working on. As a result of the long time spent with poems, the artist finds the opportunity to internalize the lines more intensely. He thanks the poet's creation, which is the result of a high concentration and serious effort, by establishing an analogy between knitting and writing and repeating them in other ways.
In his exhibited works at Art Dubai 2024, Eşref Yıldım portrays the feminist Iraqi poet Nazik el-Melaike (1923–2007) and reimagines the verses of her poem titled Who Am I? through embroidered form. El-Melaike stands as one of the most influential women poets of the 20th century, writing predominantly in the Arabic language. An active figure within the women's liberation movement, she penned poetry addressing socially engaged issues including women's rights and feminism. Despite facing significant critique from male literary critics, she persevered in establishing her presence within the literary landscape throughout her lifetime. Over time, Al-Malaika delved into writing on the concept of the self, reflecting the contemporary discussions around individualism, which often conflicted with the religious and societal norms of her country.
Eşref Yıldırım (1978, Bursa) is a visual artist based in Istanbul. He received his BA degree from the Painting Department at Mimar Sinan University. His solo shows include: Dust and Mold (Zilberman Berlin, 2023), Night Residuals (curator: T. Melis Golar, Bilsart, 2022), Diary of Defeats (Zilberman Gallery, 2018), Prison for Minor Offenses (Zilberman Gallery, 2014), Salute! (Zilberman Gallery, 2014), and Nobody's Death (Zilberman Gallery, 2012); group shows include: Ben Yazar Suat Derviş'im (Eda Yiğit, Avrupa Pasajı, 2022), Geçmişi Unutmak Yaldızlı Bir Yalan (curator: Deniz Özgültekin, Karşı Sanat Çalışmaları, 2022), Karşı Pencere (curator: Melike Bayık, KOLİ Art Space, Istanbul, 2021), Apartman (curators: Lara Lakay & Tuba Kocakaya, Apartman No:52, Istanbul, 2021), Our Nature, Tapa artist residency exhibition, Barın Han, Istanbul, 2020), Unlock (Zilberman Gallery, Istanbul, 2020), The Spirit of the Poet (curator: Jürgen Kaumkötter, Center for Persecuted Arts, Solingen, 2019), House of Wisdom (curator: Collective Çukurcuma, Bonington Gallery, Nottingham, 2018), Night: Collaborative Performance Proposal (Eski Datça Hotel, Datça, 2018), Confusion (organised by: Kopuntu, Milano Macao, Milano, 2017), House of Wisdom (curator: Collective Çukurcuma, Istanbul, Berlin, Amsterdam, 2017), Survival Kit (Istanbul, Yekatering, 2017), THE RED GAZE (Zilberman Gallery, Berlin, 2016) Transparency of Evil or Looking to the Other (Kare Sanat, Istanbul, 2015), Prison for Minor Offenses (Sinopale 5, Sinop, 2014), Figure Out, (Dubai, UAE, 2012), In Between (İstanbul 2010 European Capital of Culture, MSGS Tophane-i Amire Culture Center, Istanbul, 2010), Borders Orbits 6 (Siemens Art Space, Istanbul, 2009).
Dates
Wednesday, February 28, 2-9 pm (by invitation only)
Thursday, February 29, 2-9 pm (by invitation only)
Friday, March 1, 2-9 pm
Saturday, March 2, 2-9 pm
Sunday, March 3, 10am-12pm (by invitation only); 12-4pm (public)
Location
Madinat Jumeirah Conference & Events Centre
King Salman Bin Abdulaziz Al Saud St
Al Sufouh 1
Dubai
United Arab Emirates