Extramücadele first emerged in 1997 as a movement of culture jamming/artistic intervention. Extramücadele mostly produced extrovert works with highly distinct references. As befits its name, this was a project of ‘struggle’; a struggle against the discourses that formed the establishment of the Republic of Turkey. He carried out interventions against current hegemonic visuals/images and entered them into alternative combinations. His works were in constant struggle with state ideology, and often with the holy taboo of Kemalism. Extramücadele also produced works that commented on ‘New Republicanism’, a political movement aiming to take the place of Kemalism. In this manner, with artistic interventions using narratives, symbols and myths of the nation’s history and current agenda, Extramücadele became a political and artistic performer. In doing all this, his detached, depersonalized political engagement rendered his own status and persona invisible. This was perhaps why Extramücadele was often erroneously thought to be a ‘group’ project.
Selected solo shows and presentations by Extramücadele: Solo Presentation (Volta11, Basel, 2015), There is No God in the Sky Only Birds (Gallery NON, Istanbul, 2014), I Didn’t Do This, You Did (Gallery NON, Istanbul, 2010); and group shows: Minor Heroisms (Gallery Zilberman, 2015), Objets Trouves, Delvoyeurs (Gallery Didier Claes, Brussels, 2015), Black & White (Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, 2013; Museum of Modern Art, Warsaw, 2011), The 13th Biennial of Art: Pure Expression (Serbia, 2008) and 10th Istanbul Biennial (Istanbul, 2007).
www.extramucadele.com
> CV
> EXHIBITIONS
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Beauty of Bigotry-
THE RED GAZE-
I Only Did What I Was Told To Do -
Minor Heroisms
