TURKISH ART GALLERY TO TAKE ITS DYNAMISM ABROAD
ISTANBUL’S dynamic contemporary art gallery Anna Laudel will participate in Art Karlsruhe, VOLTA New York and Art Dubai for the first time on different dates in February and March to represent Turkey’s eminent artists on international platforms
THIS YEAR, Anna Laudel, one of Istanbul’s pioneering, dynamic contemporary art galleries, will participate in a number of major international art fairs: Art Karlshure, Feb. 21-24, VOLTA New York, March 6-10 and Art Dubai March, 20-23, representing artists from Turkey at an international level for the first time.
Anna Laudel ’s first presentation in Germany with Art Karlsruhe will include acclaimed established and emerging contemporary artists at an international level artists, showcasing works by Ardan Özmenoğlu, Belkıs Balpınar, Gazi Sansoy and Ramazan Can for the first time.
Focusing on the theme “100 Years of the Bauhaus,” Art Karlsruhe will host more than 200 galleries from 16 countries, and Anna Laudel will be the only gallery from Turkey representing eminent artists.
Anna Laudel will present Sarp Kerem Yavuz ’s latest photography project, “Maşallah” (“Mashallah”), in VOLTA New York. Famous for showcasing solo projects by leading and emerging international artists since 2008, VOLTA New York enhances the accessibility of contemporary art for young art-lovers and collectors. Focusing on works on various aspects of gender, politics, religion and violence, Yavuz’s “Maşallah” series includes patterns from the Blue Mosque and Hagia Sophia, illuminating figures in darkness.
Another first for Anna Laudel is participating in Art Dubai’s 13th edition, featuring more than 90 galleries from 41 countries. Anna Laudel will unveil new and recent works by Turkey’s acclaimed young artist Ramazan Can. The gallery’s booth will premiere an intriguing selection of his artist’s paintings, installations, sculptures, carpets and weavings and invite collectors and visitors to discover the old Anatolian tradition of shamanism, rituals and totems through Can’s artworks.
Anna Laudel is dedicated to supporting artists by providing a prominent contemporary exhibition platform and through developing a greater understanding of and closer appreciation for contemporary art in Turkey.
ABOUT THE ARTISTS Ardan Özmenoğlu
Born in 1979 in Turkey, Ardan Özmenoğlu obtained her BFA and MFA from the Faculty of Arts, Design and Architecture at Bilkent University, Ankara. She was an Artist in Residence at Kala Art Institute in Berkeley, Ateliergemeinschaft Milchhof Berlin, Frans Maserell Centrum in Belgium, Kulturkontakt Austria in Vienna and Glasstress in Murano, Venice. Her recent projects are site-specific screen print installations that incorporate architecture and sculpture, using materials such as glass, neon tubing and Post-it notes. At the interface between printmaking and sculpture, three-dimensional portraits come into being. She currently lives and works in Istanbul.
Belkıs Balpınar
After graduating from the Textile Department of Istanbul Fine Arts Academy, Belkıs Balpınar worked as a curator in the Carpet Department of the Turkish and Islamic Arts Museum and as the founding director of the Istanbul Foundations’ Carpet Museum. Since 1986, the artist has been known as the pioneer in the field called “art rugs” with works made using traditional rug textures in a contemporary context, inspired by different spatial planes of earth and the microcosm. As a researcher and writer, Balpınar has written books and articles on rugs and carpets and gives conferences in this field both in Turkey and abroad.
Balpınar, who designed the pieces of rugs for the entrance walls of the World Bank building in Washington D.C. and the entrance walls of the Aramco Center in Saudi Arabia, Zahran, has also exhibitions in Istanbul, Ankara, New York, Princeton, Washington D.C., Stockholm, Caracas, Milano, Tokyo, Ljubljana, Moscow and Bahrain. In addition, she has participated in group shows, such as the Modernist Exhibition in New York and the Galleria Nilufar in Italy in Art Basel Miami Art Fair.
Gazi Sansoy
Born in 1968 in Istanbul, Gazi Sansoy graduated from the Marmara University Fine Arts Faculty in 1993, majoring in graphics. In 1996, he did his master’s degree under the supervision of Mustafa Aslıer. He founded and managed the Ütopya Platform Art Gallery from 2007 to 2015. Most of his works reflect a unique language of painting in which he applies absurd interventions to traditional works, searching for a compromise between contemporary and tradition. In his recent works, the influence of Levni, the famous artist of the Tulip Era, is widely seen. There are three main figure groups in these works: images of Levni that construct the main body of his works, figures of famous painters of the Western painting tradition, and contemporary, erotic, female figures from the internet. He is known for large, multilayered paintings with hundreds of small figures. In these thought-provoking paintings, he remarkably compares Levni’s figures with the figures of artists like Rembrandt on the same scale and compares the two rival civilizations both in terms of art history and sociocultural aspects. His works in the last three years reference family history.
Sansoy has participated in a large number of solo and group exhibitions in Turkey and abroad and continues to work in his workshop in Kızıltoprak.
Ramazan Can
Born in Manisa province in 1988, Ramazan Can graduated from Gazi University, Faculty of Fine Arts, the Department of Fine Arts Education in 2011. In 2015, he graduated from Gazi University Fine Arts Institute Graduate School of Painting and continues his education in the Gazi University Fine Arts Institute Painting Department Sufficiency in Art program. He is also a research assistant in the Painting Department of the Faculty of Fine Arts in Gazi University. Can has participated in a large number of solo and group exhibitions in Turkey and continues to work in his studio in Ankara.
Sarp Kerem Yavuz
Born in Paris in 1991 and raised in Istanbul, Sarp Kerem Yavuz is a visual artist working primarily with photography, light projection and video. He received his bachelor’s Degree in Studio Art with Honors from Oberlin College in 2013 and his Master of Fine Arts Degree in Studio Art from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2015.
His works explore various aspects of gender, politics, religion, and violence. He is the recipient of several international accolades, including the 2016 Palm Springs Photo Festival Emerging Photographer award presented by Leica Camera, the 2013 New Artists Society Award from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and the 2013 Leah Freed Memorial Prize.
In 2013, he became the youngest artist to exhibit and be included in the permanent collection at the Istanbul Modern Museum. His works are also included in the Luciano Benetton Collection as part of Imago Mundi, in the permanent collections of the CICA Museum in South Korea, the Norton Museum in Florida, the Allen Memorial Art Museum in Ohio, the Polaroid Originals (formerly Impossible Project) Collection in Berlin, and the Soho House Collection in Istanbul and New York. He has been in over 30 exhibitions in Copenhagen, Sydney, Shanghai, New York, Chicago and Istanbul. He currently lives and works between Chicago and Istanbul.
ABOUT ANNA LAUDEL
Located in the old financial district of the late Ottoman Empire in Karaköy in a historic building boasting a vast exhibition space spanning five floors, the gallery hosted several solo and group exhibitions by artists from Turkey and beyond, including two solo shows by internationally renowned master Fernando Botero and the acclaimed sculptor Mehmet Aksoy.
The gallery was founded by the German textile magnate Anna Laudel to support the work of Turkish and international artists by providing a prominent contemporary exhibition platform and by developing a greater understanding of and closer appreciation of contemporary art within the Turkey and the wider region. As well as hosting a dynamic exhibitions program, the gallery represents Turkish artists at an international level by showcasing their latest projects in leading international art fairs. The gallery is directed by Ferhat Yeter.