ALI KAZMA
Safe Home
Duration: April 5 – May 20, 2017
Ali Kazma is known for his video series under the title “Resistance” which he presented at the 55th International Art Exhibition, la Biennale di Venezia in 2013 at the Pavilion of Turkey and, for the “Obstructions” series where he meticulously documents different human activities related to economy, production, social organization, labor and time.
In his exhibition entitled Safe Home the artist has chosen to present his latest work Safe (2016), his acclaimed film Home (2014) and Prison (2013) which is part of the “Resistance” series, first shown at the Biennale di Venezia.
Safe depicts the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, which is the fail-safe seed storage facility located deep inside a mountain on a remote island in the Svalbard archipelago, halfway between mainland Norway and the North Pole. It serves as the final back up of most food crops that are vulnerable in case of natural catastrophes, war and also avoidable disasters, such as bad management or lack of funding.
Prison was filmed in Turkey on a snowy day. In this video, the architecture of the premises and not the inmates is shown. Kazma describes the prison as “a shell of the body”, a complex structure designed to restrict the movement of the body, to restrict light and imagination: the strongest model for all forms of limitations of the body.
“It is silence, rather, that obliges the poet to listen, and gives the dream greater intimacy. We hardly know where to situate this silence, whether in the vast world or in the immense past. But we do know that it comes from beyond a wind that dies down or a rain that grows gentle.” This quote of Gaston Bachelard comes to our mind when we see Home.
In this film we look in Füsun Onur’s house, another artist’s world, which is more than a personal museum and she is eager to share through the poetic gaze of Kazma. “By means of poetic language, waves of newness flow over the surface of being. And language bears within itself the dialectics of open and closed. Through meaning it encloses, while through poetic expression, it opens up.” This quote comes from Gaston Bachelard’s analysis “The Poetics of Space” where he says that words create solidity and images evoke a concreteness, a realness to every written thing, no matter how abstract, and the mind reaches towards comprehension of each potent image. It is in these realms that the work of art reigns, expressing our humanity in dynamic, personalized terms.
Ali Kazma: (b. 1971, Istanbul, TR) is a video artist who received his MA degree from The New School in New York City. In 2000, he returned to Istanbul, where he still resides. Kazma was granted in 2001 the UNESCO Award for the Promotion of the Arts and in 2010 he received the Nam June Paik Award for his “Obstructions” series.
His work raises fundamental questions about the significance of human activity and labor as well as the meaning of economy, production, time and social organization. He has exhibited his work in the Istanbul Biennial (2001, 2007 and 2011), Tokyo Opera City (2001), Platform Garanti, Istanbul (2004), Cetinje Biennial (2004), Istanbul Modern (2004, 2008 and 2011), 9th Havana Biennial (2006), San Francisco Art Institute (2006), Lyon Biennial (2007), Whitechapel, London (2008), New Museum, New York (2010), Hirshhorn Museum, Washington D.C. (2012), ARTER, Istanbul (2015) and the 55th Venice Biennale, Pavilion of Turkey (2013) among others. In 2017 he will exhibit his work at the Jeu de Pomme in Paris.