10: Abstractions, Intimations, Ruminations

The group exhibition “10: Abstractions, Intimations, Ruminations” curated by Duygu Demir, takes place at İMALAT-HANE from September 2 to December 2, 2023. Presenting a selection of works produced in the last decade, the exhibition features works by Ahmet Doğu İpek, biriken, Burak Kabadayı, Cevdet Erek, Deniz Aktaş, Hakan Topal, Hale Tenger, Hasan Özgür Top, Huo Rf, İnci Furni, and the duo Özlem Günyol – Mustafa Kunt.

The exhibition focuses on the decade between 2013 and 2023, which signifies a customary yet entirely arbitrary interval for survey exhibitions. This ten-year period also coincides with significant social, political, and ideological shifts that have caused seismic transformations both for Turkey and on a global scale.

“10: Abstractions, Intimations, Ruminations” brings together works by artists who choose to look at the radical changes witnessed during this decade from within the realm of aesthetics. The exhibition neither claims to offer a fully panoramic overview nor a comprehensive historical evaluation. The humble intent of this collective endeavor is to reflect on what is going on and register the critical changes that were previously unimaginable, under the guidance of the artistic gesture and critical thought. The terms ‘abstraction,’ ‘intimation,’ and ‘rumination’ in the title indicate the various individual and interwoven strategies that the artists employ while doing this. These methods also reveal the shifts in the vocabulary of artmaking as it has adjusted its ways over the past decade. In this context, ‘abstraction’ becomes a survival tactic rather than the reductionism or neutralization of the worldly as it has often been blamed to do so in art historical narratives of the 20th century. ‘Intimation,’ on the other hand, suggests the clever invisibility of the visible, while ‘rumination,’ serves as the subtle yet impactful incision of both the artists and the curator.

10: Abstractions, Intimations, Ruminations only addresses some of the events of the last ten years, hoping to find a small but common vein, acknowledge recent wounds, and at times, to pick on scabs. It only touches on a fraction of the spectrum of sensations experienced during this period, slicing into a small part of what is possible to be told and recorded about the past decade.