Ayşe Erkmen's works in the Permanent Collection of Museum Ludwig, Cologne

Dirimart is pleased to announce the acquisition of Ayşe Erkmen’s works by the Museum Ludwig, Cologne. The works acquired from the artist's Sections series were a part of Dirimart's Art Cologne fair selection.

Erkmen’s work emerges from classic conceptual art, but her shapes are redolent of formalism. The wall sculptures; irregular geometric shapes cut from metal sheets, sprayed with enamel and hung in a cluster, like disassembled puzzle pieces. Their shapes recall her Pleasant Corners from 2009 - a series of asymmetrical outdoor sculptures that she leaned against street signs and trees. In both cases, the modified rectangles, with various segments removed, cloud represent the floor plan of a one or two room apartment. The recurring theme is the use of abstraction as a tool for recollecting and imagining time and space.

Ayşe Erkmen (b. 1949, Istanbul) graduated from the Department of Sculpture, Mimar Sinan University in 1977. Among the international exhibitions Erkmen has participated in are the 2nd, 3rd and 13th Istanbul Biennial; the Turkish Pavilion at the 54th Venice Biennale; Manifesta 1, Shanghai, Berlin, Gwangju, Sharjah, Limerick, Scape, Ichihara, Aicihi biennials; and the Folkestone and Echigo-Tsumari triennials. In 2020, she was granted the prestigious triennial Ernst Franz Vogelmann Sculpture Award, becoming the first female artist receiving it. She lives and works in Berlin and Istanbul.