CITYSCALE

Gülçin Aksoy & Atılkunst, Yeni Anıt, Volkan Aslan, Anne Bleisteiner, Klaus vom Bruch, Carlotta Brunetti & Julia Lohmann, Department für öffentliche Erscheinunge grubu, Deniz Gül, Gözde İlkin, Suat Öğüt, Kristine Osswald, Hülya Özdemir, Susanne Pittroff, Michaela Rotsch, Martina Salzberger, Robert Stumpf, Ali Taptık, Yasemin Nur Toksoy, Stefanie Unruh ve VIDEOIST

Curators: Beral Madra, Deniz Erbas (Istanbul) und Dr. Cornelia Oßwald-Hoffmann (Munich)
Coordinator and supporter: Galeri Françoise Heitsch, Munich

LOTHRINGER 13,( Städtische Kunsthalle München) http://www.lothringer-dreizehn.com/vorschau/halle/index.htmlOpneing: 22.07.2010, 19.00

23.07.–19.09.2010

Concept Text

BERAL MADRA& DENİZ ERBAŞ

In The Civitas of Seeing Sennett (1989) clearly states why he is interested inthe city:A city isnt just a place to live, to shop, to go out and have kids play. Its a placethat implicates how one derives ones ethics, how one develops a sense ofjustice, how one learns to talk with and learn from people who are unlikeoneself, which is how a human being becomes human.For vast communities and individuals in our cities the city is just a place tolive, to shop and to struggle for daily achievements. Justice, dialogue andthe sense of being human is always postponed to an indefinite date; even ifthese may be the genuine desires of urban people.In this sense, the majority of todays contemporary art deal with the contestedissues indicated in this statement. Istanbul, as an emblematically hybridmegapolis of east -west clash became a particular territory where theseissues being tackled, questioned, examined and transformed by local andinternational artists and curators since almost two decades. Artists have thisdouble challenge to fight the established image of Istanbul full of clichéssuch as being a bridge between east and west, mosaic of cultures etc. witha critical, deepened, sensible approach and communicate with the massesoutside the narrow art milieu via contemporary artistic expressions.Istanbul consists of 39 districts and particular city centers, where it is saidthat different ways of life occur and confront each other. This might be astereotype conviction, considering that the vast districts of the city have thesame architectural infrastructure of mosques, false-palazzo type municipalitybuildings, shopping streets, phony greenery, derelict or luxurious housingareas. For the communities in these districts, the question is how and in whatscale these communities with mostly rural backgrounds, that are marginalizedfor different reasons and which are unified in ghettos or condominiumstalk, confront and communicate with each other. In what scale these districtsparticipate in the political discourse of the city, and in what level this participationis manifesting within the current political position of Turkey? Howare individuality, creativity and freedom of expression articulate within thisentanglement of homogeneity and heterogeneity of centers, suburbs andthe periphery? One of the goals of this exhibition is to display a comparativemapping of Istanbul and Munich focusing on these issues under the titleCITY SCALES.Documentary approaches that seize social, cultural and political notions, historicmoments and private, personal, individual details; that is concentratedon the witnessing, while taking position in approaching the reality and iscourageously commenting them; that are characterized by an acute sense ofreality, by the desire to remain entirely factual on the relationship betweenart and reality, is intensively present in contemporary art scene.This approach will be the linking point between Munich and Istanbul for thisexhibition and it will reflect how cities can be seen, interpreted and representedby artists that are aiming at capturing the reality, the massive andrapide transformations, unseen or neglected details and livings in the citieson micro and macro scales.