Exhibition: Hüseyin Bahri Alptekin – Democratic Luxury
M HKA, Antwerpen
16 October 2015 - 31 January 2016
“I investigate the beauty and the vulgar and the relationship between them.”
– Hüseyin Bahri Alptekin
Hüseyin Bahri Alptekin (°1957, Izmir – †2007, Istanbul) was fascinated by the difference between the promise of something and (banal) reality. This promise could be in the form of the name of a cheap hotel that suggests the experience of a distant place, or the image of a mass product that evokes luxury or exoticness rather unconvincingly. Alptekin was an artist who could see the profound effects global capitalism had on everyday life, and who observed the movement of people and goods across different geographies - particularly in the period since the collapse of the Soviet Union. He was a traveller, studied forms of brutal capitalism in places that are considered peripheral areas of western modernity. They are the carriers of meaning and remnants of all this - the signs of the burgeoning impact of mobility, marketing and image circulation - which Alptekin used as material for his art, as a means of contemplating their meaning.
The Democratic luxury exhibition was the first European retrospective of the work of Hüseyin Bahri Alptekin. Since the beginning of the 90s, Alptekin has focused on an all-embracing artistic production that includes photography, sculptures, installations, neon text, videos and collages. A "plastic arts project" that reflects the prosaic material qualities of the 'global mess' that brought about transnational free-market capitalism. Democratic luxury wants to bring us closer to the artist's thought processes and the works on display by means of a selection of studies, drawings and notes from the Alptekin archives.
Democratic luxury has been developed in tandem with RAMPA Gallery in Istanbul, where the two presentations together formed a large retrospective of the work of Alptekin. Democratic luxury was set up in collaboration with the Estate of Hüseyin Bahri Alptekin. The Hüseyin Bahri Alptekin archives are managed by SALT, Istanbul.
Media
>Hüseyin Bahri Alptekin, H-Fact: Hospitality/Hostility, 2003 - 2007
>Hüseyin Bahri Alptekin & M.D. Morris, Turk Truck, 1995
WorksShow artists
> Hüseyin Bahri Alptekin, Global Digestion , 1980-2007. Print, digital prints mounted on forex, 145 x 935 cm (installation sizes), 9,5 x 15 cm (each).
> Hüseyin Bahri Alptekin, Su flux us, 1986. Mixed Media.
> Hüseyin Bahri Alptekin, Berlin, 1986. Mixed Media.
> Hüseyin Bahri Alptekin, J&B, 1986. Mixed Media, mixed media on paper .
> Hüseyin Bahri Alptekin, Michael Morris , Heterotopia , 1992-2011. Mixed Media, mixed media .
> Hüseyin Bahri Alptekin, Michael Morris , Ah Odessa , 1993-2011. Print, print on dilbon , 150 x 225 cm, 150 x 45 cm.
> Michael Morris , Hüseyin Bahri Alptekin, Turk Truck , 1995. Installation, turkish licensed red russian made truck, counterfeit soccer balls.
> Hüseyin Bahri Alptekin, Michael Morris , Kara-Kum, 1995. Print, plastic bag with digital print , 230 x 148 x 57 cm .
> Hüseyin Bahri Alptekin, Artist in depression , 1996. Installation, room installation; divan, boxing gloves, clothing paravane, stool, counterfeit soccer ball, coat hanger, coat, wooden massage ball.
> Hüseyin Bahri Alptekin, Capacity/Capacities , 1998. Photography, panel wit led writing mounted on 36 photographs, 158,5 x 354 cm x 7 cm, 62,4 x 139,37 x 2,76 inches (all), 39 x 39 cm, 15.35 x 15.35 inches (each photograph).
> Hüseyin Bahri Alptekin, Winter Depression , 1998-2011. Installation, diagnosis divan, neon, dry fish, wallpaper, 48 x 90 (neon), 73 x 180 x 62 cm (diagnosis divan), dimensions varible (wallpaper) .
> Hüseyin Bahri Alptekin, Cidade , 1999. Installation, neon, 7.3 x 888.9 x 5.1 cm.
> Hüseyin Bahri Alptekin, Kéraban-Le-Têtu, 1999. Print, print on paper , 124 x 115 cm.
> Hüseyin Bahri Alptekin, Black Sea Map , 1999. Print, print on paper , 126 x 154.4cm.
> Hüseyin Bahri Alptekin, Tremor, Rumour, Hoover , 2001. Installation, sequins mounted on plastic plates , 270 x 445 cm .
> Hüseyin Bahri Alptekin, Guardians of the Treshold , 2001. Print, print on dilbond, 113.7 x 195.5 cm.
> Hüseyin Bahri Alptekin, Bina , 2002. Photography.
> Hüseyin Bahri Alptekin, Refinery , 2002. Print, print on dilbond, 50 x 116 cm .
> Hüseyin Bahri Alptekin, Duress de Melancholie , 2002. Print, print on dilbond, 90.5 x 112.5 cm .
> Hüseyin Bahri Alptekin, Road to Tirana, 2003. Video.
> Hüseyin Bahri Alptekin, Capacity , 2003. Print, digital prints mounted on forex, 139 x 847 cm (installation sizes).
> Hüseyin Bahri Alptekin, H-Facts: Hospitality/hostility , 2003-2007. Object, hotel sign, 79 x 106 x 19cm.
> Hüseyin Bahri Alptekin, Incident - S Ipanema , 2004. Video, video, sound, 00:08:20.
> Hüseyin Bahri Alptekin, H-Facts: Horses and Heroes , 2005. Mixed Media, mixed media, polyurethane copies of quadriga, 28 i̇znik tiles, 3 videos, sound, 23.5 x 23.5 cm (each of İznik tiles),00:19:51 (H-Fact: History: Horses & Heroes),00:07:16 (Potemkin Staircases),00:03:55 (Cupolas Istanbul).
> Hüseyin Bahri Alptekin, Stranger in Paradise , 2006. Print, digital prints mounted on forex, 96 x 696 cm.
> Hüseyin Bahri Alptekin, I'm Dreaming About Bombay, 2006. Article, jackets and found images, 157 x 279 cm (installation sizes).
> Hüseyin Bahri Alptekin, Incident - S, Fact - S, Circumstance - S, Accident - S, Situation - S , 2007. Object, embroidered and used hotel sheets, 80 x 55 x 4 cm (all) 14 x 55 x 4 cm (each).
> Hüseyin Bahri Alptekin, Incident - S Bombay , 2007. Video, video, sound, 00:08:05.
> Hüseyin Bahri Alptekin, Work from the Alptekin Archive . Drawing.