ALI EMIR TAPAN
As a graduate of the German High School, Tapan grew up with Rock’n Roll, coffee house and tavern cultures in Beyoğlu district of Istanbul, which was the meeting point of people from diverse cultural backgrounds. After studying Intellectual History at Connecticut College between 2003 – 2007, he opened his first solo show “Discreet Intimacy” in 2008. His works have also been included in Art Athens and “Minor Truths”, a group exhibition curated by Elif Kamışlı. Tapan’s imagery possesses a wild originality that refuses to reconcile with both everyday reality and the reality of the artist.
Referencing his inspirational sources from music, cinema, literature and philosophy, the artist characterizes the cultural and visual ‘bastardness’ in his works as a deliberate ‘ancestoral adoptation’. He emphasizes the ‘slip/accident’, the potential for change through violence in his works and explains “….even a process that is naturally violent can be applied with grace.”.
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