THIEF

Özgür Atlagan
Onur Ceritoğlu
Joseph Redwood-Martinez
Mark Van Yetter

November 18 - December 4, 2011,
Opening - Fri., November 18, 6:00 - 8:00 pm,

exhibition at - Boğazkesen Cad. No. 27A, Tophane, Beyoğlu (formerly Non), 
p: 0541 468 0214
opening hours - 11am - 6pm, Wed - Sun

Brunch - Sat., November 26, 11:00 - 12:00 followed by a special screening, TBA

Protocinema is pleased to present "Thief," a group exhibition including works by Özgür Atlagan, Onur Ceritoğlu, Joseph Redwood-Martinez, and Mark Van Yetter. The exhibition title makes reference to the classic Italian neo-realist film, The Bicycle Thief (1948), a profound meditation on the alienation and displacement that are a part of modern life. There is the feeling that something has been taken. Shifts of meaning and a growing understanding of context are at the heart of the Protocinema project. The artists in Thief each address these concerns in contemporary life, though in surprisingly different ways.

In Goods of the Sunken Ship, 2011, Özgür Atlagan presents a trash bag hut that visitors are invited to enter one at a time. The cramped interior offers one small stool, a monitor on a traditional carpet, rice lights, and two wooden boxes. Atlagan's video image, turned 90 degrees and facing downwards, depicts tourists photographing their own ultimate demise. The accompanying audio is strikingly complex: lesser known songs from the film Titanic (1997), recordings of once-popular tunes from old records, and voiceovers in Turkish of the artist reading price tags, brand names, promotions, and the websites of duty free companies. Goods of the Sunken Ship unifies the physical and linguistic detritus of travel into a deeper dialogue on compulsive waste and the universal longing to get away from oneself.

Onur Ceritoğlu uses locally found wooden furniture as the basis for his sculptures, which he reconfigures, disassembles, and reassembles in a manner akin to typical Ikea home furnishings. His vertical sculpture, Evci, 2011, has traveled from one friend's studio to another's and from flat to flat, and is each time reassembled according to Ceritoglu's own hand-drawn manual. Every temporary owner of the work re-(or mis-)interprets the form and function of the object anew. In this way, local craftwork and global corporate production have been co-opted to address developments in the homogenization of cultures.

Founded in 1947 by Henri Cartier-Bresson and Robert Capa, among others, Magnum Photos is a cooperatively run, international photography archive containing some of the most iconic imagery from the time of the Spanish Civil War to the present. In order to facilitate image searches and reprint permission requests from the press, publishers, advertising, galleries, and museums, an extensive system of keywords has been developed that allow for each image in the archive to be tagged, ordered, and classified. With the ongoing Archive Keywords series, Joseph Redwood-Martinez has taken this meta-data as the basis for select reproductions from the Magnum archive. These words that make an image allude to the uncomfortable intersection of art history, stock photography, photojournalism, and advertising. At the same time very precise and ambiguous, they simultaneously attempt to scrutinize and exhaust any meaning. In this respect, the selections from Archive Keywords are studies in the limits of verisimilitude. Photographs down to their limit.

Mark Van Yetter's paintings inhabit a strange place between the conscious and unconscious in their attempt to re-connect with the lost self. In Untitled, 2011, a single brush stoke represents an arched gateway or a rainbow or an abstract form, or all three and more. At the base of the form two seated figures face each other, their shapes of their bodies forming a profile. This setting has distinctly ancient architectural references, yet the figures appear as if from the revolutionary 1960s. As curator Howie Chan has noted, "The work of artist Mark Van Yetter draws on these associative sequences, relating to the tipping point at which formalism becomes untethered to reveal multiple possibilities while referring to the underlying impossibility (absurdity) of its original premise."

Protocinema is a non-profit experiment in making moving exhibitions in New York and Istanbul, presenting exhibitions in temporary and/or disused spaces, specific to each artist. Protocinema creates opportunities for emerging and established artists from all regions to realize new works and exhibitions in a range of contexts that are open and accessible to the public at large.

Special Thanks to - Alex Zachary Gallery, New York; Selim Birsel; Sabanci University, Istanbul; Lisa Spellman, SALT Istanbul, Galeri NON, Istanbul, Emma Black and Jason Duval.

WITH SUPPORT FROM

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PRESS

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