Şakir Gökçebağ: As It Seems

Drawing together Şakir Gökçebağ’s installations, sculptures and photographs produced across different time periods and adapting them to Arter’s second floor gallery, As It Seems presents a comprehensive exploration of the artist’s approach of using formal manipulations to transport ordinary objects and familiar images into the realm of the extraordinary. The exhibition, curated by Emre Baykal, will be on view between April 4, 2024 and November 10, 2024.

Comprised of works previously displayed in different settings now rescaled and reinterpreted for the gallery space at Arter, As It Seems offers a captivating glimpse into Şakir Gökçebağ’s diverse body of work through a multitude of materials. 

Beginning with the associations sparked by the items we frequently encounter in everyday life, or the formal similarities and contrasts they evoke, Şakir Gökçebağ reorganises objects in a deconstructive manner by dismantling, repeating and reassembling them to create works that transcend mere intervention or fragmentation. His works lift objects out of their familiar contexts, revealing novel and unexpected possibilities in relation to our perception of the world and its contents. Constructed with elements at first glance strangely familiar to the viewer and still connected to their original forms with an abstract thread, Gökçebağ’s installations reinterpret the mundane and commonplace through creative and playful compositions, bringing about a poetic realm where things are liberated from their primary attributes and functionalities.

The artist’s practice is guided by principles such as simplicity, universality and accessibility; as he believes within every object there resides the seeds of creativity, ready to fire up our imagination, and that the most powerful messages can be expressed through the simplest of things. Umbrellas, garden hoses, clothes hangers, belts, clothespins, shirts, spirit levels, folding meters, carpets, even toilet paper rolls and lentil grains, which the artist often includes in his works, are transformed into three-dimensional puzzles and geometric forms with a surprising spatial impact. The object ceases to be a persistent reference point for artistic representation with this approach, which imbues the form with its own identity, creating an elegant and playful universe, convincing in its own right. Metamorphosed through contrasting interventions and playful gestures orchestrated by the artist, such as subtraction-duplication, emptying-filling, cutting-combining, lengthening-shortening, it manifests itself in unexpected forms that foster fresh interpretations and expand the boundaries of perception.

Visit here for Arter’s current and upcoming programme. 

Press contact: Senem Çelikörslü, senemc@arter.org.tr.