Ayşe Erkmen
On Its Own
19 February–26 March 2011
Şair Nedim Caddesi No: 21a
Akaretler, Beşiktaş
Istanbul, Turkey
T +90 212 327 0800
F +90 212 327 0801
info [at] rampaistanbul.com
www.rampaistanbul.com
Rampa is hosting Ayşe Erkmen‘s new exhibition entitled “On Its Own” between February 19 and March 26, 2011.
A leading figure in the art world, Ayşe Erkmen, has exhibited continuously in national and international museums, art galleries and biennials over the last 20 years. Erkmen produces works, which emphasize thought and add new dimensions to the perception of time. Erkmen continues to render the hidden meanings of space with her ephemeral/volatile site-specific sculptures.
Ayşe Erkmen, who will represent Turkey at the Venice Biennale 54th International Art Exhibition, is presenting a new large-scale installation for the “On Its Own” exhibition at Rampa. The installation is conceived around online image banks which one can no longer determine who has compiled or how they have been structured. When one types the artist’s name in the search engine and clicks the “images” link, in a matter of seconds the engine returns thousands of images listed page after page. The first few pages feature current entries and images directly corresponding to the artist and her work. Gradually results become less and less pertinent and the images that turn up can only be connected to the artist’s name in another context.
Similar images are sorted and sequenced differently in different browsers such as “Safari” or “Firefox” at different times. While there may be statistical differences on different days, the search results may also vary with geography and borders. A computer in Turkey might yield different results from one in Germany. Who is behind this system? Who put the images on the “net” in the first place; who, apart from the official website authorized by the artist, linked them up again? Who operates in the background on this fascinating yet perpetually changing thus evidently unreliable archive and to what purpose? In her new work “On its Own”, deriving from all these questions, Ayşe Erkmen works with images linked to her name on the internet and creates an anonymous “self-portrait” by rescuing these images from their digital context. Borrowing or renting; one of the recurring themes in Ayşe Erkmen’s works, once again finds a monumental application in On Its Own.
