Turkey’s prominent contemporary artist Haluk Akakçe died on Monday, Oct 9.
The 53-year-old artist, who had been treated for lung cancer for a while and remained in a coma for nine days, passed away this morning.
In his post on his Instagram account on September 30, Haluk Akakçe shared that he was in a coma for nine days and miraculously returned to life. He said: ‘‘Return from the house of spirits. I don’t know how to define it. I returned from a huge dark coma with the miraculous efforts of doctors for nine days. I love you all.’’
Haluk Akakçe was born in Ankara, Turkey in 1970. He studied architecture at Bilkent University in Ankara, and then received an MA from the Royal College of Art, London and an MFA in video and performance at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He currently lives and works in New York, Istanbul, and London.
Akakçe has exhibited extensively in Britain and internationally. Selected solo exhibitions and commissions include Alison Jacques Gallery, London, 2010; Deitch Projects, New York 2007; Maison Louis Vuitton Champs-Elysées, Paris 2007; The Sky is the Limit (2007), Las Vegas; Museum Tamayo Arte Contemporaneo, Mexico City, 2005; British Art Show 6, Hayward Gallery, London, 2005; BALTIC, Gateshead, 2005-6; Tate Britain, London, 2004; Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Basel, 2003 and The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York 2002; Shanghai Biennial and the São Paulo Bienal, 2002.
Haluk Akakçe’s work includes animated video projections, wall paintings and sound installations, revealing abstract and dream-like landscapes where biology, architecture, geometry and metaphysics coexist.
His works draw from an eclectic set of references: Celtic and Islamic architecture, Art Deco, science-fiction and American comic books. The visual texture of the animations is familiar from computer games and pop videos, yet this reclamation of a form of contemporary popular culture creates a new formal language for gallery-based art.
