It’s very important to understand that an artistic truth is a proposition about the sensible in the world. It’s a proposition about a new definition of what is our sensible relation to the world, which is a possibility of universality against the abstraction of money and power.
Alain Badiou, Fifteen Theses on Contemporary Art
http://www.lacan.com//frameXXIII7.htm
The corpus of work of Çağrı Saray presented in this exhibition entitled OUTSIDER consist of drawings, etchings, photography and video; all arranged as an installation related to his visual reflections on identity questions, his personal history, the concept of home-space and, on urban environment and its socio-political connotations.
Hence, the title OUTSIDER is correlated to his position as an artist in the current coercive political, economic and cultural transformations that shake the local and global living circumstances rather than to the content and form of the works. The content and forms of works are meticulously mapping the various properties, phases and moments of these objectionable circumstances.
Since his debut into the highly competitive art scene of Istanbul Saray distinguished himself with peculiar drawings of illustrative bizarre narrations, ordinary living scenes and common objects. Strong, determined lines multiply in these unusual drawings so that they create an animated image and refer to the flux and reflux of visual memory. The recent works in this exhibition are evidently derived from this basic concept and form but reverberate multifarious properties and special effects.
First of all in these works of Saray one can rethink on the current competitive tension between hand drawing and computer drawing. This controversial condition is manifested most clearly. They make perfect sense as we are now accustomed to computerized art making, but at the same time they initiate the traditional sensibility towards what we expect from art making. The repetitive and complex mode of lines emphasizes the figurative imagery on the works, which is derived from the simple details of the real world and daily life. At the same time the simplicity of these lines verify that the idea is essentially born of simple line and the intention is to indicate the crucial individuality. In Saray’s work, line is applied both as a consequence of, and referred to as a vehicle for formal virtuosity and intense personal vision. Functional, simple, but also scenic and intricate drawings are residing somewhere between reality and fantasy, form and non-form and create a vibrant show, rich in complexity and thought.
Saray’s previous works were shown Kuad Gallery’s “OnLine” exhibition (November-December 2013) focusing to the artworks, which produce images with line. The realization of that exhibition was based on present-day motivations and intentions. It was witnessing the artist’s continuous commitment to the traditional and up-to-date techniques of line. The line was introduced as still the most fast and simple expression of the idea and imagination, together with many possibilities of drawing a line with computer and video techniques that gives the artists motivation. It was a deliberate choice to name these current techniques as “works of line” and not “drawings”. Drawing has a traditional-classical and Modernist-poetic meaning.
The political, social and cultural concepts and contents and the relational aesthetic in the images produced with various techniques of line, as manifested in Saray’s drawings invoke an updated gaze and perception for the viewer. Images in his works created with lines propose decipherable and intelligible metaphors. With their repetitive intricacy they convey a liberated form of seeing for the viewer. Saray presents an alternative to the hegemony of forms of seeing strictly programmed by the consumption and media oriented visual culture.
The same illusory perception of “hand made-computer-made” can be experienced the 8 white on white reverse printed etchings entitled “Memory Spaces” (2014), which depict the transformation of urban scenery as if seen from a mirror, as if it is a metaphor of what has been before and after the ruthless intervention of neo-capitalist interests of official and private sector. Saray’s work evokes an extremely sensible approach on current concerns of private-space public-space antagonisms. The sensibility is reflected in this method of creating a minimalist serene effect with white on white etchings.
The photography works show his inquisitive defiance more clearly. The one entitled “The Weight of History”, his performance documentation shows a nervous personal isolation in front of Louvre. His anguish in a graceful manner marks the reality that history matters and it has long lasting effects on social psychology unless it is not questioned and re-written. “Feeling Like…” also shows a bewildered person in an uncanny forest. Here, the uncanny ambiance, which upsets and disturbs the human engagement with the world around, is rendered as blurred shot. The relation between the person and the forest-scape questions again the ambiguous boundaries between the self and the environment.
In this corpus of work Saray’s speculative perspectives on the decentered historical moment becomes visual anchors for the perceiving subject.
Beral Madra, December 2014
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