Journey from the cosmic to the earthly at Haunted Mansion

MERVE YEDEKCI Curated by Julia Kaganskiy, UVA: The Threshold of Chaos invites art lovers to reflect on the universality and subjectivity of experience. This exhibition, which stirs the senses of the audience in ways that arouse curiosity or surprise with sculpture, performance and site-specific installations where light, form and movement are intertwined, will take visitors on a journey from the cosmic to the worldly. Curated by Necmi Sönmez, ‘Hybrid Spaces’, which presents extraordinary visual experiences to the audience in Perili Köşk, will reveal the convergence between contemporary art and architecture. Borusan Contemporary Director Dr. We met with Kumru Eren and curator Necmi Sönmez. What awaits us this season? KUMRU EREN: Actors who remained silent during and after the pandemic; I interpreted the meeting of artists, galleries and institutions with art lovers through exciting programs, the art scene gaining new local and foreign actors, and the return of the Istanbul scene, which aroused interest all over the world at that time, to its glorious 90s. As a matter of fact, you could say it was a wish. In line with our annual program, our temporary exhibition, consisting of both a new selection from our collection and works produced mostly by Borusan Contemporary’s order, meets the audience. The relationship between the two exhibitions in terms of their context makes our annual program themes stronger. It deals with both ontological and practical ideas of space and space, which have been discussed from the ancient Greeks to the present. Through UVA’s work, art lovers will witness how new media functions as an interface between the positive sciences and the social sciences. I think that they will catch the inspiration of new narratives shaped by the combination of engineering and human sciences. Our viewers will experience a more holistic and inclusive experience than ever before. In this combination, the works specially produced for Perili Köşk are mentioned… KE: The installation titled ‘Phases’ within the scope of the UVA: The Threshold of Chaos exhibition was produced completely specific to the new space. Likewise, the installation titled ‘Vanishing Point 3:1 #3’ meets our audience with a new version. Two new striking murals, ‘Etymologies’ and ‘The Shock of Present Time’, were produced as site-specific from the exhibition. These works can be viewed until 27 August 2023, the end of our temporary exhibition. As part of the ‘Hybrid Spaces’ exhibition, a selection from the Borusan Contemporary Art Collection, 55 works from our collection, some of which are on display for the first time, meet with art lovers. These include Keith Sonnier’s Ballroom Chandelier Installation; Jamie Salmon’s hyperrealist sculpture named Asım Kocabıyık; Istanbul Wall Painting by Jerry Zeniuk; Feel at Ekrem Yalçındağ’s House II; Andrew Rogers’ works titled Solved will be permanently available at the Haunted Mansion. How do you evaluate the role of art in Turkey’s social and economic change? KE: The best evaluation was made by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk before: “If a nation is deprived of art and artists, it cannot have a full life.” The completion of economic and social change is only possible with art; an immature society in this field lacks human values ​​and virtues; will be doomed to be deprived of refinements in social and individual life. Let’s get into Hybrid Spaces a little bit. Mr. Necmi, can you talk about how the exhibition preparation process developed? NECMI SONMEZ: In the selection called ‘Hybrid Spaces’, I aimed to put the works produced with techniques such as wall painting and video sculpture under a special magnifying glass. After creating the conceptual framework of the exhibition, everything went fast. I exhibited each piece of art in a way to develop a new network of relationships in different corners of Perili Köşk. What awaits us in this selection? NS: In the exhibition, there are 55 pieces of contemporary art from different generations, mainly New Media Art techniques, compiled from the collection. After stepping into the Haunted Mansion, we see the doors of Ivan Navarro, which stretches to infinity. The works, which are spread over different floors of the space, from the wall painting of Ekrem Yalçındağ in the old observation tower, somehow refer to the “current situations” that have passed through the filter of art with the times we live in. The answers brought by artists living in different geographies of the world to the issues brought up by global warming are extremely impressive. Another important feature is that the voices and breaths of artists living and working not only in Western Europe and America, but also in different continents such as South America are heard in this exhibition. Where does ‘Hybrid Spaces’ get its name? NS: We live in such a world and witness such strangeness that we need to move away from certain categories such as black/white, good/bad, positive/negative and be in a position that produces more fluent and faster responses in order to live. In this context, hybridity is an extremely important stance. Perili Köşk is a hybrid space, and important decisions that will change the lives of many people are taken in front of the works we hang. The hybridity of space is closely related to our attitudes towards life.