Selma Gürbüz
Carnivalesque
March 2–April 8, 2017
Rampa Istanbul
Şair Nadim Caddesi No: 21a
Beşiktaş, Istanbul
www.rampaistanbul.com
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Rampa is pleased to present its third solo exhibition of Selma Gürbüz’s works from March 2 to April 8, 2017. Gürbüz is an anomaly amongst her contemporaries. Her style and subject matter is singular and in her new body of works she continues and expands on her aesthetic prowess. The exhibition, Carnivalesque, includes never before seen three-dimensional work, painting, work on paper, and kinetic sculpture.
Gürbüz’s works have often tended toward the historical, fantastical, and mythological—a tendency typical to Carnival, as well. Historically, Carnival was a celebration that occurs in late February or early March, better known as Mardi Gras or The Feast of Fools. The festival still famously exists today in cities like Venice and Rio de Janiero. It is a jubilant, ecstatic and excessive gathering held in preparation for Lent, a 40-day period of chastity, frugality and fasting. The celebration is marked by masks, theatre, performance, and is a jovial and sometimes sinister public revolution against all that is stabilizing or socially acceptable. Carnivalesque is therefore a freedom characterized by a communal and ritualistic defying of norms. It is war and peace, young and old, rich and poor, past and present, Heaven and Hell, male and female, all at once.
While Gürbüz maintains her stylized aesthetic, in this exhibition she gives the figures and characters in her works a new agency. They speak, they fight, they dance, and some literally move off of the canvas, as in her three-dimensional paintings. The figures depicted, historical or imagined, animist or human, all have a sense of pride, marked by a defiant liveliness. Put together, the works reflect the shadowy, anarchic, and freeing dualities that define the Carnivalesque.
Selma Gürbüz (1960) was born in İstanbul, Turkey. After having studied at Exeter College of Art Design between 1980 and 82, she graduated from Marmara University Fine Arts Faculty in 1984.
Her recent solo exhibitions include Daydream, Rampa, İstanbul (2014); Long Night. Faraway Voyages, Rampa, İstanbul (2013); Mind’s Eye, Lawrie Sahbibi Gallery, Dubai (2011); Shadows of Myself, Rose Issa Projects at Leighton House Museum, London (2011); Archetypes, Warehouse (Antrepo) No: 3, İstanbul (2010), Sunny Shadows, Gallery Apel, İstanbul (2008) and Makii Masaru Fine Arts, Tokyo (2007); Feline I, Galerie Maeght, Paris (2006); Feline II, Gallery Apel, İstanbul (2006); The Fairy and the Genie, Gallery Apel, İstanbul (2004), Yünname, Gallery Apel, İstanbul (2000) and Karaname, Gallery Apel, İstanbul (1999).
Gürbüz has also participated in many national and international group exhibitions including Dream and Reality (2011), From Traditional to Contemporary (2010), New Works, New Horizons (2009) and Modern Experiences (2008), İstanbul Modern, İstanbul; Cara a Cara (travelling show), with Marco Del Re, Galerie Maeght, Paris and Barcelona (2003); Fantaisies du Harem et les Nouvelles Shéhérazades (travelling show), Museum of Contemporary Art, Barcelona and Museum of Natural History, Lyon (2003); Le Cirque (travelling show), Gérard-Georges Lemaire, Editions Eric Koehler, Athenee-Theatre Louis Jouvet, Paris, Espace Mira Phalaina, Montreuil and Novomestka Radnice, Prague (1996). Her other projects include Shadow theatre design for ‘More Wind‘, Portside Gallery, Yokohama (2005) and Futurist Stage Curtain Design, Revues Parlées, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris (1996). Automatic Games, Kwangju Biennale, Korea (1995) and L’Orient des Cafés (travelling show), French Cultural Centre, Cairo, Alexandria, Athens, Thessaloniki, Jerusalem, Tel Aviv (1992).
Selma Gürbüz lives and works in Istanbul.
For further information or image requests please contact Nicole O’Rourke: norourke [at] rampaistanbul.com / T +90 (212) 327 0800
