ATALAY YAVUZ

Opening Reception: Thursday, September 18, 6:00 - 8:00 pm
Exhibition runs: September 18 - October 16, 2014
Protocinema intervention in Özge Bakkaliye
Firuzaga Mh. Yeni Çarsi Cad. No. 23/4, Beyoğlu, İstanbul, next to Münferit restaurant
Viewing hours: Daily 14:00 - 02:00

Protocinema presents new work by emerging artist Atalay Yavuz, who alters readily available materials and our perception of them, through a series of interventions in Özge Bakkaliye. The goods in Yavuz's work are transformed to offer poetic reflections on relationships and cognition. Protocinema's insertion of Yavuz's work in Özge Bakkaliye, an independently owned convenient shop, also aims at aligning contemporary art with easily accessible items.

Atalay Yavuz has inserted Strata, 2014, a thin clear Plexiglas box, the same size as the window, in the Özge Bakkaliye entrance. His box is filled with light blue Ultrasound Gel and is translucent. Ultrasound Gel is used to aid medical professionals when looking into the human body, generally at a time of failing health or pending birth. In Yavuz' intervention the gel transforms the shop itself into a metaphor for the human body that now can be viewed from both inside and outside. Strata may also suggest how one's vision affects understanding of the surroundings and ourselves. Yavuz's work shares the approach of Process Art, a movement in the US and Europe in the mid-1960s, whereby installations included their process and/or interaction and experience as a key feature. Inside Özge Bakkaliye he has installed Prozac, 2013, made with Prozac syrup poured over a reflective surface. The viewer encounters a distorted image of themselves seen through the anti-depressant. The liquid refracts the light and the mirror reflects this secondary refracted image. His intervention poses the questions "How much does society push individuals to use certain chemical or physical stimuli and to what degree is this self motivated? In what way do political issues correspond to our individual life?" (1.) This work is connected to the daily morning ritual of waking up and looking in the bathroom mirror, a time of day when one is most connected to the non-conscious mind. Another new work Nightblue, 2014, fills a transparent clock-like object with a two-part liquid, manufactured and used to remove eye make-up - half dark blue, half clear. This work is suspended from the ceiling of the shop and opens up dialogue on perception of both time and vision.

The inherent challenge for Yavuz in exhibiting work made from materials similar to those in the shop, cheap and mass produced, is that the contextual shift is extremely slight, offering an almost indecipherable difference to the usual displays. These subtle gestures stand to initiate further possibilities. Additionally, the site itself, offers the lively mechanics of the market place, in lieu of traditional contemplative art spaces. Protocinema's exhibition in Özge Bakkaliye acknowledges similarities in existing art/cultural institutions in Turkey, in that this specific show is in a semi-public/privatized/public space. Yavuz's work pushes for intuitive responses about our relationship to these materials and spaces, and how we understand our temporal existence.

1. Mark Van Yetter, p. 42, Sanat Dünyamiz, March/April 2014, Issue 139, pp. 42-46

Atalay Yavuz, 1988, born in Sakarya, Turkey. This fall Yavuz is attending the graduate program at The Universität der Künste Berlin, UdK, (Berlin University of the Arts), Germany. He holds a B.Sc. in Pharmacy from Marmara Universty Faculty of Pharmacy, Istanbul. His first solo show, titled Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, opened at Marquise Dance Hall, Istanbul, in 2014 and he was included in the following group shows: Going Nowhere, Marquise Dance Hall, İstanbul; Mamut Art Project in 2013, in Between Slashes Formless/Normless/Homeless, CDA Projects in 2011. Yavuz was awarded catalogue by Rotary Istanbul in 2013 and a participant of The Definition of Art Group in 2010-11.

Protocinema is a nonprofit art organization that makes transnational, site-aware exhibitions around the world, based in İstanbul. Collaborations, interventions and exhibitions are presented in spaces specific to each artist. Founded in 2011 by Mari Spirito, Protocinema creates opportunities for emerging and established artists from all regions to realize new work and exhibit existing work, in a variety of contexts that are accessible to a wide range of individuals. www.protocinema.org

PRESS

---