Borusan Contemporary, Istanbul
Bengü Karaduman is the youngest artist represented in the SPOT ON exhibition series which focus on works in the Borusan Contemporary collection. Having hosted eminent figures of the international contemporary art world previously, such as Manfred Mohr, Ola Kolehmainen, Sol LeWitt and François Morellet, SPOT ON exhibition will host artworks of a Turkish artist for the first time, on the third and the fourth floor of Borusan Contemporary.
Karaduman’s project titled “The Planets Are Attached to This Tree with a Thread” could be considered as an installation comprising as diverse techniques as video, animation, performance, sculpture, drawing and collage. The artist aims to divert viewers’ attention away from causality and have them focus on the sky, stars and messages from other worlds. By embarking on different visual experiments to ensure this “change of perception” – both with her works in Borusan Contemporary Art Collection and those realized for this exhibition – she points at the condition of human beings of today who are in a constant search for a “standpoint” for themselves within different systems. This difference is based on a carefully woven web of “contrasts”.
Video works which form the backbone of the exhibition (Daypole, Nightpole) can be seen at the elevator operating between the third and fourth floors of Perili Köşk. When the doors of the elevator are opened, you see Shamans with different costumes, dances and rituals, they appear and disappear. The Shamans and their realm which Karaduman creates using video techniques embody the combining elements for all the works in the exhibition, because when she puts these Shamans on the stage as a protest against effect of technology which reduces individual’s relationship with nature to a minimum, she succeeds in bringing about the most unexpected and most innocent to the foreground. The Shamans in the exhibition have been created in three stages: First the artist designed two costumes for them, and then she and her friends put these costumes on and realized a performance. Finally this taped performance was enriched with different animation techniques and music.
