Sothebys inaugural sale of contemporary Turkish art – video – 5 artists talk

TURKISH ART AUCTION

Sotheby’s is holding its inaugural sale of Turkish art on 4 March 2009 in London. Check out the art and see 5 Turkish contemporary artists talking about their paintings, photographs and sculptures in the sale.

Themes of war, imprisonment, fighting and human sacrifice run through the works. Power and powerlessness are expressed in both social commentary works referencing feminism and the more political works such as Nasif Topcuoglu’s  Abu Ghraib-inspired photograph Lamentations .

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Featured artists:

• Taner Ceylan discusses his work Spiritual 2008, a photo-realistic painting of blood-dribbling fighter in motion.

Taner Ceylan, Spiritual, paint

• Female artist Hale Tenger talks about Invainers of the Lost Arc II 1992, a brass installation of male figures spiralling down into a void expressing her fiery feminism at that time. In Balloon Loan II 2008 the topic of depression is depicted in a photograph in which the only coloured objects are a row of balloons floating on the sea soon to be shot with a gun.

Nasif Topcuoglu, Lamentations, photograph

• Nasif Topcuoglu is a photographer who reconstructs Baroque paintings with contemporary youths replacing the original figures. His works are sexually-charged and his interest in the sacrifice of youth as a continuing phenomenon  is evident in both Sacrifice: The Story of Isaac 2008 and in the more political work Lamentations 2007 which references Abu Ghraib.

• Other artists include ‘bright young thing’ Leyla Gediz and another female artist Canaan Senol whose work The Transparent Police Station 2008 shows nude and uniformed figures trapped in a plexiglass brick wall. Ansen Atilla‘s ‘inspired’ photograph The Devil May Load 2008 captures a violent scene of a gun-toting figure constructed with household and everyday objects.

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