Dirimart will be hosting two new solo exhibitions by Sarkis. The exhibitions, titled “85 Screams: After Munch” and “Sarkis’ Films,” will be showcased simultaneously at Dirimart’s Dolapdere and Pera galleries. Within these exhibitions, Sarkis’ works explore the interactions and time lapses between his past artworks and exhibitions, providing a unique and engaging experience for visitors.
During the creation process, Sarkis has a continuous dialogue with each of his artworks. He treats each piece as a unique character that comes to life, breathes, reacts to different lighting, interacts with other pieces, and ultimately makes an appearance. These artworks are constantly in conversation with each other in Sarkis’ studio in Villejuif, Paris, and are prepared to be displayed in specific spaces and contexts that exist within the artist’s mind.
When someone is invited to an exhibition, they feel connected to the space and time in which they are located. As they experience the art, they feel a sense of rebirth and renewal. The new works of art are part of a larger intellectual stream that builds upon the work of their predecessors.
85 Screams: After Munch is based on a series titled 100 Screams: After Munch, which Sarkis created between November 2014 and January 2015. Drawn from the figure in Munch’s Scream, which Sarkis came across in his early childhood and has resonated in many of his works for many years, the series comprises 100 oil on paper pieces (32 x 24 cm).
In this series, Sarkis attempts to embrace the speed of a human scream, conveying distinctive screams on paper with white and red oil paints as they come out of the paint tubes without using any brush. In the exhibition, the first 85 of them are showcased on Sarkis’ 85th birthday.
The oil painting artworks are lined up one after another, like a film strip, starting with the one that denotes the artist’s birth year, 1938, creating an autobiographical cycle in the exhibition space. Among these artworks, which can also be perceived as self-portraits, 22 of them are accompanied by stained glass windows, one for each year that Sarkis considers a milestone in his life, starting with the year of his birth. In this way, a pattern is presented to the audience in an autobiographical manner, intertwining the artworks’ years of creation, the ages Sarkis attaches importance to and the present time.
Sarkis’ Films, on the other hand, features 16 films in 16mm that Sarkis created at Le Fresnoy – Studio national des arts contemporains, where he was invited to its opening in 1997. The films provide visual clues as to why and how the artworks of Sarkis, who has engaged in a prolific creation process since the 1960s to present day, shall be elaborated in each presentation. Recorded in a single take using the 16mm film technique, these unedited films capture the artist’s execution of the scripts that he wrote as if he describes his rituals. This series of consecutively structured 16 films, the audience finds the opportunity to experience Sarkis’ unique cinematic language.
