09 May - 29 Jun 2013
In the final show of the 2012-2013 exhibition season, The Empire Project presents its inaugural show in the "Bashibazouk" series, between 9 May-22 June 2013 featuring the works of three young artists C. M. Kösemen, Deniz Üster and Yuşa Yalçıntaş.
"Bashibazouk" takes its title from the term describing an alternative recruitment form of irregular soldiers in the Ottoman army that functioned as scouts in war to destabilize the opposing army until 19th century when they were disbanded for their disruptive behaviour. In an attempt to re-visit the concept as a satyre of the human condition in contemporary culture, the artists in this exhibition were selected due to the unsubmissive, exploratory, and risk taking nature of their works. They are some of the brightest and best of a very exciting young body of artists who are now emerging from the Turkish art scene.
C. M. Kosemen, is an artist and researcher born in Ankara in 1984. He studied at Cornell University and Sabanci University, and completed his Masters' studies at Goldsmiths College in the field of media and communications. His interests include zoology and palaeontology, as well as history and mysticism. In his artwork, Kosemen tries to document the various "demons," personal and imagined, that he encounters during his life.The artist considers this process both a confrontation with and a naturalist-like expedition into the endless depths of subconscious history.
Kosemen's paintings, executed on large-scale paper with instantaneous, automatic brushstrokes, depic all manner of mystifying phantoms, imaginary beings and nubile, dark-haired women, engaged in various incomprehensible acts. Placed together in one room, they form a Pompeiian narrative that relates to evolution, sexuality and mortal anxiety, a generative sequence that invites viewers to explore and speculate.
Deniz Uster, born in 1981, Istanbul, works and lives in Glasgow, UK. She studied Painting and Drawing at Mimar Sinan University of Fine Arts, Istanbul. She had her MA in Visual Arts and Visual Communication Design at Sabanci University, Istanbul and her MFA in Fine Arts at Glasgow School of Art. In 2011, she was selected to represent Turkey for Henkel Art Award and nominated and shortlisted for Sovereign European Art Prize. As an artist who collaborates with the language of epics and storytelling and narrates myths from an unknown future, Deniz Uster argues that no tradition is original, suggesting that influence is an essential tool in the construction of culture. In her recent research, she finds her inspiration in the histories that places construct for themselves, and begins to imagine new events that may have occurred on another timeline, an alternate history, perhaps spoken about, but never documented.
The only video work in the exhibition belongs to Deniz Uster, which features a solitary shaman-like figure who performs a cycle of actions, which seem to produce power for the wind turbines surrounding her. After incubating, then breaking the eggs she lays, sacrificial offerings, salt (as fuel), and eventually the ethereal presence of the wind appears.
Yusa Yalçıntaş, born in 1985, Istanbul, graduated from Marmara University Faculty of Fine Arts. In his work he generally uses the "perfectly drawn" child figures from children's books. Those idealized drawings reflect a certain theatricality and mystery. While using the Turkish and Asian miniatures as a reference point, he distorts the perspective and gently hides the real subject of the picture in a playful way.
