Roxy Night Club, Taksim - İstanbul
April 4-15, 2005

Artists: Genco Gülan, Gül Ilgaz, Nancy Atakan, Neşe Çoğal, Özgül Arslan, Volkan Aslan, Yasemin Özcan Kaya.

The work of art always points out a different time, a different place, a different socio-cultural production and function conditions. A decoding, a reading of ‘concepts’ or ‘definitions’ is dominant on the work of art. This project aims to purify the artist and its work from all readings and codings and suggests a depiction within its own words. Free Zone / Impartial Area excludes all kinds of approaches that implies what it tells, how it works, on which particular point it becomes ‘art’; it is an area purified of concepts, quotations and sources.

This exhibition proposes an area of discovery, research and interrogation, instead of claiming thesis on the artists’ works, actions and their original functions. Because the work of art is the fruit of an artist’s thoughts, feelings and imagination. The artist’s conscious of the world is constructed within historical, social and socio-cultural borders.

An other component defining the meaning of the work of art is, its exhibition area, the physical locale where it is settled in. The exhibition place can transform the meaning and function of the work. This exhibition suggests an alternative place instead of museums, galleries or white cubes which define beforehand, the function of the work, orienting the audience to a specific artistic reading. The habitual art locales breathe official affirmations which decide on whether the work is “good” or “important”. They limit the object to look and the way of seeing it.

This exhibition place is an area where none of these restrictions will be seen. The name Free Zone / Impartial Area includes references that point out many social, economic and politic fields. “Free” means, independent, liberal and which does not block any movement.

A free zone is deployed outside of a country and is, a politically and commercially open region. It is considered beyond all boundaries but at the same time within defined borders. It does not belong to any side. It refers to an impartial region, both politically and martially.

This exhibition suggesting to stay outside of the defined and approved borders, will occur in an impartial, neutral and free space.

DERYA YÜCEL
March 2005, İstanbul