Monography | English | Category: Conceptual Art, Sculpture, Installation, Video, Public Art
Dirimart’s art publishing continues with the English edition of the comprehensive Sarkis* monograph Sarkis Başlangıçta, İstanbul 19380–20200 published in 2020. Including a text by Cem İleri, translated by Vanina Kutelas, under the editorial of Ayşe Orhun Gültekin, and with the design of Bülent Erkmen, Sarkis in the Beginning Istanbul 19380–20200, as a joint project with Hatje Cantz, gathers the artist’s exhibitions and works realised mainly in Istanbul and in some cities of Turkey.
This book, standing out with its focus on works of an artist in the context of a single city, is structured as two parts. In the first part, İleri follows the traces of autobiographic elements in Sarkis’ works by contemplating on communication channels which the artist, consciously or intuitively, establishes in various areas such as literature, philosophy, and music. Sources of Sarkis’ oevre foster with Sarkis’ interpretations. Apparently, he fearlessly reaches forth his hand into all these ‘twinkles’ and indiscriminately touches them, with the curiosity of a child: either Paradjanov, Tarkovsky, Sevim Burak, or Aliye Berger, or John Cage, Edvard Munch, or the big master of music Johann Sebastian Bach, or an ordinary encounter that momentarily breaks off from the flux of daily life and involved in the perception universe of Sarkis. The second part presents an inventory of Sarkis’ works and exhibitions created and realised here, in Istanbul, his city of birth and youth, since 1960 until now. In the section giving a chronological list of exhibitions, we see that Sarkis held a couple of solo exhibitions and participated in some group shows in Istanbul, before he moved to Paris in 1964. His real hit takes place in 1986 with the Çaylak Street exhibition held at the Maçka Art Gallery. We observe that, after this turning point of Turkey’s art milieu, this ‘event’ that is considered to be a milestone, Sarkis helds exhibitions in Istanbul more frequently, participates in more activities, is at the centre of debates, and continues his artistic struggle uncompromisingly, until today.
Front and back cover of the book bear ‘Scorched Crate’ a work exhibited in his 2020 Dirimart show titled UNTITLED. And also: 19380-19920-20200. This work, being one of the first fruits of his interest in interfering in time by annexing a ‘0’ to the end of some key dates of his life, alludes that this monograph is already prepared to be teleported beyond millennia to come, starting with its cover.
*Paris-based Sarkis Zabunyan (b. 1938, Istanbul) is known by his first name SARKIS. He had his breakthrough with the exhibition Live In Your Head: When Attitudes Become Form at Kunsthalle Bern in 1969, followed by his participation in documenta 6 and 7. Major exhibitions include Passages at the Centre Pompidou in 2010, Hôtel Sarkis, a retrospective at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Geneva (MAMCO) in 2011, and his installation Respiro in the Turkish pavilion at the 56th Venice Biennale in 2015.
