Everywhere, Nowhere: Azade Köker
Azade Köker points to the “hybridity” that she arrives at through a unique technique, tranpsarency and sensibility, as a mechanism of survival. She touched on themes of identity and belonging in her previous works, while now, she focuses on the negotiation of nature as a cultural structure, producing images of nature that human have intervened in and repeating these forms on the surface, thus analyzing them in depth.
The artist deconstructs the perfection and legibility of the image through surface layering and reprocessing, interpreting the possibilities of painting. The artist’s new exhibition, Everywhere, Nowhere focuses on boundaries that become increasingly blurry and meaningless, people’s voluntary and involuntary movements under today’s socio-political conditions and the consequences of this situation.
The artist sees today’s wars as harbingers of natural disasters of the future, showing that these disasters will push the boundaries that people are trying to preserve by fighting for them. Köker says, “I’m not able to see the forest because of the trees,” trying to represent nature in her paintings, emphasizing the lack of boundaries through the ambiguously delienated natural spaces and political boundaries that she believes will lose their meanings in the near future.
Azade Köker (1949, Istanbul) lives and works between Berlin and Istanbul. She was a professor at the Braunschweig Technical University, Berlin, Germany. Her recent solo exhibitions include: Entkettet (Proje 4L, Elgiz Museum, Istanbul, 2015), Moving Spaces (Zilberman Gallery, 2013), Human Nature (Milli Reasürans Art Gallery, Istanbul, 2007), Transparenz der Abwesentheit (Otto-Gallery, Münich, 2004), and Transparenz des Gartens (Kunstverein, Bielefeld, 2001). Her recent group exhibitions include: Ultrahabitat (Zilberman Gallery - Berlin, 2016), Meeting Point (Kunstverein Constant, Germany, 2015) and Dream and Reality (Istanbul Modern, Istanbul, 2011). Her works are included in many public and private collections including Akbank (Istanbul), The British Museum (London), Berlinische Gallery (Berlin), Elgiz Contemporary Art Museum (Istanbul), Lebendiges Museum (Berlin), John Michael Kohler Arts Center (Wisconsin), and Istanbul Modern.
