VOLKAN DIYAROGLU: “LACK OF WHOLENESS”

Top to Bottom: Volkan Diyaroglu, “Competitive Authoritarian”, 2023, tuval üzerine akrilik boya, 100x250 cm.; “Sensible Sucker”, 2023, tuval üzerine akrilik boya, 100x250 cm.; “Lack of Wholeness”, 2023, tuval üzerine akrilik boya, 100x250 cm.

Volkan Diyaroglu is at Terminal 08 (Gorzów Wielkopolski – Poland) between November 25th 2023 - January 28th 2024 with his exhibition titled “Lack of Wholeness”. Volkan Diyaroglu explains the concept of his exhibition with the following words: “We are living in barbarian times. I’m not referring to the conflicts that we are living through around the world. They are not surprising. This world has always been bloody and outrageous.

We are living in barbarian times because we all have a little “Stalin” inside. We know better than everyone else; everything we do and think is right. Well, we think that we think. But we do not. We are just reacting. The ones who are not like us, we don’t listen to them, they are just useless people. We are all tiny “Putins" not just to other people but ourselves too. At the same time, we behave like we are UN representatives who must declare their opinions to the rest of the world in a short time because the world is waiting for our opinions immediately. And we do it in a very strange way. We declare some opinions first and then look for the evidence to justify them. Don’t you think that we appreciate ourselves more than we deserve? Who cares about our opinions? Who is asking for them?

We are familiar with the divisions caused by social media and our technological gadgets, but it is not the whole story. It is true that we are all living in our own algorithms thousands of light years distance from other people. We are all small, tiny, funny dictators in our micro worlds without understanding that we are numbers to the others: to big corporations, to governments, to established power. We are just tools, dear visitor. In these days we are all divided, converted into individualistic, selfish, and senseless beings.

So, keeping this in mind, in this exhibition I bring foreword the idea of a general “Lack of Wholeness” in three different ways. At first, all artworks individually must represent the idea of the lack of wholeness. Then, between the works, I create a lack of integrity. And finally, I create a total sense of the lack of wholeness, visually and conceptually similar to the experience we have when we use the Internet to get information, for example when we search on YouTube burned children in some war, before we get that information, first we have to watch an ultra-bio-efficient body cream protecting us from old age or a happy family eating healthy yoghurt. In my opinion, that kind of confusion and emotional experience creates in today’s individuals what I was referring to above: the lack of wholeness.”

 

Volkan Diyaroglu, “Anchored”, 2023, ahşap ve metal, 285x110x80 cm.

VOLKAN DİYAROĞLU: “BÜTÜNLÜK EKSİKLİĞİ”

Volkan Diyaroğlu, “Bütünlük Eksikliği” başlıklı sergisiyle 25 Kasım 2023 - 28 Ocak 2024 tarihleri ​​arasında Terminal 08'de (Gorzów Wielkopolski – Polonya) yer alıyor. Volkan Diyaroğlu sergisinin konseptini şu sözlerle açıklıyor: “Barbar çağlarda yaşıyoruz. Dünyada yaşadığımız çatışmalardan bahsetmiyorum. Şaşırtıcı değiller. Bu dünya her zaman kanlı ve çirkin olmuştur.

Barbar çağlarda yaşıyoruz çünkü hepimizin içinde biraz “Stalin” var. Herkesten daha iyi biliyoruz; yaptığımız ve düşündüğümüz her şey doğrudur. Peki, düşündüğümüzü düşünüyoruz. Ama yapmıyoruz. Biz sadece tepki veriyoruz. Bizim gibi olmayanları dinlemiyoruz, onlar sadece işe yaramaz insanlar. Hepimiz sadece başkaları için değil, kendimiz için de minik birer “Putin”iz. Aynı zamanda, dünya bizden beklediği için kısa sürede fikirlerini dünyaya açıklamak zorunda kalacak BM temsilcileri gibi davranıyoruz. Hemen görüş alıyoruz. Ve bunu çok tuhaf bir şekilde yapıyoruz. Bazı fikirleri önce beyan ederiz, sonra onları haklı çıkaracak delilleri ararız. Kendimize hak ettiğimizden daha fazla değer verdiğimizi düşünmüyor musunuz? Fikirlerimiz kimin umurunda? Kimin umrunda? onları mı soruyorsun?

Sosyal medyanın ve teknolojik cihazlarımızın yarattığı bölünmeleri biliyoruz ama hikayenin tamamı bu değil. Hepimizin diğer insanlardan binlerce ışıkyılı uzaklıkta kendi algoritmalarımızla yaşadığımız doğrudur. Hepimiz mikro dünyalarımızda, diğerlerinin, büyük şirketlerin, hükümetlerin, kurulu gücün gözünde birer sayı olduğumuzun farkında olmayan küçük, minicik, komik diktatörleriz. Biz sadece aracız sevgili ziyaretçi. Bugünlerde hepimiz bölünüyoruz, bireyci, bencil ve duygusuz varlıklara dönüşüyoruz.

İşte bunu aklımda tutarak, bu sergide genel bir “Bütünlük Eksikliği” fikrine üç farklı şekilde önsöz sunuyorum. Öncelikle tüm sanat eserlerinin tek tek bütünlükten yoksunluk fikrini temsil etmesi gerekiyor. Sonra işler arasında bir bütünlük eksikliği yaratıyorum. Ve son olarak, bilgi almak için interneti kullandığımızda, örneğin bir savaşta yanmış çocukları YouTube'da arattığımızda, o bilgiyi almadan önce yaşadığımız deneyime benzer şekilde, görsel ve kavramsal olarak tam bir bütünlük eksikliği duygusu yaratıyorum. Öncelikle bizi yaşlılıktan koruyan ultra biyo-etkili bir vücut kremini ya da sağlıklı yoğurt yiyen mutlu bir aileyi izlemeliyiz. Bana göre bu tür bir kafa karışıklığı ve duygusal deneyim, günümüz bireylerinde yukarıda bahsettiğim şeyi yaratıyor: bütünlük eksikliği.”

Volkan Diyaroglu, “Portrait of Joseph Stalin”, 2023, tuval üzerine akrilik boya, 200x208 cm.

 Volkan Diyaroglu, “Used Users”, 2023, tuval üzerine akrilik boya, 277x248 cm (poliptik).

VOLKAN DIYAROGLU: Memory and Blood

Volkan Diyaroglu, “Your Bloody, My Memory”, mixed media on canvas, 156x153 cm, 2014 © Element Art Space.

Element Art Space is pleased to announce and be the first gallery in Singapore to present a solo exhibition of a Turkish artist. The show, “Blood and Memory”, by Volkan Diyaroglu will consist of 13 paintings and be on view from 14 March - 20 April 2014.

Many people have forgotten that Turkey is in fact located in Asia Minor, more precisely in Western Asia, and holds one of the oldest, richest and most diverse history in the world. Its culture today reflects remnants from its prehistoric Anatolia combined with Ottoman and Western culture traditions which results in a “modern” Western state that still maintains traditional religious and historical values. Their influence has spread all the way to Greater Asia and is easily relatable to the audience in South East Asia.

The title of the exhibition, “Blood and Memory”, references Greco-Roman cultures from his birthplace on the shores of the Black Sea and alludes to the divergence between the artist’s personal memories and how they are revealed through his work. Memory, when it calls up the very history of the artist’s own trajectory, through the introduction of remnants of his past work (his followers can trace the passages of his artistic itinerary in many of the paintings on exhibition here and revisit very significant moments in his art). It is also a testimony because the paintings are timeless, but things imposed on canvas are form the exact time when they were cast onto it and attempt to serve as an anchor to reality and proclaim that in the midst of so much chaos, a door can exist that helps us transcend it. In the end, however, it all turns

into blood spurting from the brushes of an artist through whom litres upon litres of paint flow, leaving the cosmic in ruins.

The exhibition “Blood and Memory” consists of 13 paintings, and it will run until April 20, 2014.

VOLKAN DIYAROGLU

Volkan Diyaroglu (b. 1982, Turkey) received his education from Mimar Sinan University and San Carlos Faculty of Fine Arts, Polytechnic University of Valencia, Spain. Diyaroglu has had solo exhibitions in Italy, Portugal, Spain, Turkey and received scholarships and artist residencies in Europe. His works can be found in major collections such as the Coca Cola Foundation, The Elgiz Museum of Contemporary Art (Turkey), National Museum of George Enescu (Romania) and more.

Element Art Space

The gallery first opened in October 2009 under the mentorship of Chua Soobin–one of the most prominent gallerists in South East Asia and was the first to introduce avant-garde Chinese art to the region. Initially named S.Bin Art Plus, the gallery changed its name to Element Art Space in 2011. Drawing from Soobin’s more than 20 years of experience in the

art industry, the gallery’s aim remains consistent: to promote great and innovative artists from South East Asia and provide exchange and dialogue with artists, galleries and collectors from throughout the world. The gallery also offers residencies to a highly selected number of emerging artists from the region. The gallery’s inaugural exhibition, “Harmony,” featured the works of 33 painters and sculptors from throughout the world, many of which have never been displayed to the Singaporean public before--marble sculpture by Fernando Botero and gold-plated sculpture by Marc Quinn just to name a few. Following this grand entrance to the Singapore art scene, the gallery continues to be the advocate for compelling and challenging contemporary work by today’s most exciting emerging and mid-career artists.

Element Art Space

Raffles Hotel Arcade, 328 North Bridge Road #02-13, Singapore 188719

Tel: +65 6883 2001 Fax: +65 6883 2707

Email: stephanie@elementartspace.com