Participation from Turkey to the 7.th Contemporary Art Exchange Exhibition of
Korea and Turkey

Derya Yücel
Curator

The thing that we call “art” -reflecting limitless imagination of human, his life and his thoughts- is surely not just an inspirational behavior of the artist. On the other hand, art work production is a conscious and entirely rational activity. Through the work of art, reality, as a form, is placed in front of us. It would not be enough to just expose the real life in order to be an artist. Artist has a consciousness of putting forth his/ her sensitivity, memory, the order that s/he gives to reality, his/ her tensions, resistances and a result that that s/he can look through his/ her own or everybody’s point of view. And the artist, having the courage to do this, would see that s/he can create him/ herself. Because “art” is a way of being…

Artists who are headed for behaving, creating and announcing their existence with a borderless language, manifest at each opportunity their courage for being an “artist”, manifest that they are determined to make art against economical, social and cultural conditions. Excited, self-reliant “fresh” looks should question negative conditions like these and should take on the responsibility of artist’s identity by creating their own standpoints. Today, within the atmosphere of Turkish Contemporary Art, there is a young generation of artists who don’t lose their permanence and enthusiasm of creating. Most of the artists from this generation, who put forward current discourses through universal language of art, are known by the international art environments, too.

Artists from Turkey invite artists of South Korea to this cooperation in order to share their responses, interests, values, messages and their own words, to explain why they are making art and to make believe in the curing capability of art, if not the changing one. Within this respect, the “Contemporary Art Exchange Exhibition of South-Korea-Turkey”, being realized for the 7th time, contributes extremely to this valuable sharing between artists of these two countries.

We are observing that society’s belief in the necessity of art is getting feeble, artwork is dissolving as a material in the system, voices, not weak at all, are getting higher while the presence of artistic production in market is being questioned with discussions and criticisms. Within this aspect, studying the aims of artists and sharing their belief and enthusiasm for art, certainly will bring the necessary fresh’ness into the international art environment. We believe that maintaining this artistic exchange by means of a continuing activity like “Contemporary Art Exchange Exhibition of Korea-Turkey”, would contribute both to artistic and cultural memory between two countries and to the universal environment of art.