laterpost 1996. Ayşe Erkmen at Portikus, Frankfurt am Main

Zuspiel, 1996

image courtesy of the artist and Portikus, Frankfurt am Main

In 1996 AYŞE ERKMEN has placed, in the frame of an exhibition entitled Zuspiel, seven security gates, so-called metal-detectors at the entrance portals of the art venue Portikus in Frankfurt am Main. According to the press release the entrance area was thus transformed to a security zone, in which the detectors indicated whether the exhibition visitors had metal with them through shrill sounds and light signals. The detectors’ sounds of alert were not followed by the refusal of admission; rather, the visitor became aware of his or her physical presence and  of the space surrounding him or her’.

In a more recent interview she gave for Flash Art Magazine in 2011, the artist explained:

The only thing that is inevitable in my work is my process: the things that I come across in any given situation I use to think through. I don’t always know what I will find in advance and what my feelings and interest will be towards what I find. If I find something of interest and significance, this can be the inevitable. But it changes immensely from one project to another. One can also say that the one inevitable aspect of my work is my constant and precise attention to and interest in form. I think this is the part that communicates, and I feel the form should be arresting to the viewer. How it communicates and what it communicates can be vastly different.

AYŞE ERKMEN‘ last solo exhibition entitled Unlikely was on view at Barbara Gross Galerie in Munich  from October 28 to January 14, 2016.



comments are closed !