The exhibition titled ENDLESS brings together Sarkis’ selected works from the Arter Collection in the same gallery space for the very first time, endowing them with a new life and new experiences.
Covering a wide period of time in the artist’s production, ENDLESS features works from the 1980s to the 2010s, including Respiro – an installation first exhibited in the Pavilion of Turkey at the Venice Biennale in 2015. In addition to concepts and themes frequently encountered in Sarkis’ works, such as warming, burning, camouflage, memory, traces, atelier and home, ENDLESS emphasizes the crucial role played by light, color and music in his artistic practice. The exhibition curated by Emre Baykal will be on view at Arter’s 2nd-floor gallery between 4 May 2023 and 4 February 2024.
Conceived to coexist with a space, to embrace spatial references and associations, or to forge a different space altogether, the works of Sarkis are reinterpreted and transformed by the artist on every occasion they are exhibited. The exhibition titled ENDLESS, presented on Arter’s 2nd floor, brings together a selection of the artist’s works from the Arter Collection in the same gallery space for the very first time, endowing them with a new life and new experiences.
ENDLESS spans a wide period of time in Sarkis’ production, from the 1980s through to Respiro – an installation exhibited in the Pavilion of Turkey at the Venice Biennale in 2015. In addition to concepts and themes frequently encountered in Sarkis’ works, such as warming, burning, camouflage, memory, traces, atelier and home, ENDLESS emphasizes the crucial role played by light, color and music in his artistic practice. In the exhibition, Sarkis restages works charged with memories of different pasts and places – such as Icons of Istanbul (1986–2023), Elle Danse (1990), Transflammation (1996–2001), Mixed Retrospective (2001), Calling (To the Bees) I (2013), as well as the mirrors and neon lights from Respiro which were donated to the Arter Collection in 2021 – and reinterprets each of them within a larger body they construct together in their current setting. ENDLESS mainly consists of existing works drawn from the Arter Collection, but also features two new pieces welcoming visitors as they enter the space. Sarkis requested staff members working on the exhibition setup to leave black fingerprints on the wall, calling to mind an era burdened by political upheavals, natural disasters and loss. Just beside this dark circle, a wheelchair adorned with white feathers looks ready to move at any moment and leads us to the lights and colors of Respiro, paving the way for hope.
Sarkis also sustains his dialogue with other artists, both his predecessors and contemporaries, through the works presented in this exhibition. Johann Sebastian Bach’s Cantata No. 127 and Dmitri Shostakovich’s Quartet No. 15 resonating from the works installed at opposite ends of the space, converge with the music composed for Respiro by Jacopo Baboni-Schilingi, transforming ENDLESS into a staging for three independent textures of sound orchestrated by the artist. The works of Ali Kazma and Domenika Kaesdorf, included in ENDLESS at Sarkis’ invitation, further enrich and broaden the world Sarkis builds in the exhibition.
ENDLESS brings together Sarkis’ works produced in different mediums and times in order to stimulate new relationships among them and expand their distinctive memories on a new journey he sets up in the exhibition space.
As part of Arter Publications’ Close-Up series, Emre Baykal, the curator of ENDLESS, wrote a comprehensive book titled Çaylak Sokak, which was released in September 2019. The publication offers a multi-layered reading of Sarkis’ works, including some featured in ENDLESS, by placing them in various contexts related to political and cultural history. The book focuses on Sarkis’ iconic installation Çaylak Sokak, which is regarded as one of landmarks in the history of Turkish contemporary art.
A life full of art
The works of Sarkis (b. 1938, Istanbul), who moved to Paris in 1966 following his graduation from Istanbul Mimar Sinan University of Fine Arts and maintained his ties with Turkey ever since, deal with the concepts of memory and time as well as alluding to art history, daily life, and his own life story. In the 1960s, the artist’s production mostly consisted of paintings made with gouache and watercolor. In the 1970s, Sarkis began producing sculptural works, using various elements such as tar, metal, electrical current, resistance wiring, heat, water and neon. Presenting a cultural and historical accumulation for the audience to explore through objects, sounds, images and scenes, the artist re-examines the relationship of his works to one another and to the space in which they are located on every occasion they are exhibited.
Sarkis’ works have been presented in established institutions including the Centre Georges Pompidou (Paris), Guggenheim Museum (New York), Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Kunst-und- Austellungshalle der Bundesrepublik Deutschland (Bonn) and Museé du Louvre (Paris), as well as the biennials of Venice Sydney, Shanghai, São Paulo, Moscow, and Istanbul. Following the exhibition Sarkis: Interpretation of Cage / Ryoanji, curated by Melih Fereli at Arter in 2013, Sarkis’ seminal installation Çaylak Sokak was also presented in Arter’s group exhibition What Time Is It?, curated by Emre Baykal and Eda Berkmen in 2019.
