Istanbul - Skin of the City
De-Regulation embeds Kutlug Ataman’s work in a broad realm of textures and concerns, which we are calling the Skin of The City. The Skin includes many materials encountered in our research; a stranger’s photographic cycle of the city of Istanbul, an archive of wedding cultures throughout Turkey, a collection of found Ataturk images, many hours of television from Istanbul, contemporary magazines, and film posters from the 1970’s and 1980’s.
The Skin of the City un-frames the monographic exhibition by introducing several visual layers of indirect association with the work on display. Equally it introduces a particular location, Turkey, without turning it into a context that didactically explains everything about the work. At each level of this material assemblage, the stereotypes of an exotic East are dispelled as the place and its people become more complex.
Here numerous entry points into the exhibition are offered, shifting it from being about Ataman’s work to the question of what his work makes possible. These are not ‘didactic’ tools, nor are they ‘contextualising’ materials. Instead, the Skin provides reflections on how art works can extend beyond themselves through numerous levels of association and identification
