Press Release - Inattentional Blindness

11/01/2014 - 22/02/2014


Galeri Zilberman is pleased to present “Inattentional Blindness”, a group exhibition curated by Işın Önol, featuring work by Sophie Dvořák, Şakir Gökçebağ, Berat Işık, Claudia Larcher, Bernd Oppl, Liddy Scheffknecht, and Aylin Tekiner.

The term “inattentional blindness” is coined in psychology and refers to the condition that the subject fails to notice a fully visible but unexpected object, because attention has been engaged on another task, event or object. This phenomenon is not the result of visual impair or deficiency. 

The exhibition at Galeri Zilberman focuses on how the media, politics and the advertising industry are instrumental in the manipulation of awareness of “free choice” and problematizes the role of the sense of sight in these manipulation processes, from physical, social and mental aspects. The artists in the exhibition deploy various strategies in relation to notions of visibility and perception.

Political questions about our perception of justice, the normalization of injustice and its social consequences are raised in Sophie Dvořák’s drawings, while Claudia Larcher’s video animation challenges our spatial perception. Berat Işık’s videos deal with the strong connection between invisibility and otherness: “Dancer in the Dark”, reminds the audience the notion of social blindness, whereas “Eyes Wide Shut” shows the mechanisms of keeping masses blind. “Apocalypse Please” on the other hand, imagines a family representing the suppressed other, deciding to abolish their sense of sight.

In his site-specific installation, Şakir Gökçebağ shifts the possible meanings that are embedded in materials and daily objects. At his photography work “Untitled (leafs)”, he creates optical illusions by directly manipulating the objects he shoots, instead of digitally retouching them.

A game of soccer is reduced to the shadows of the players on the field in Liddy Scheffknecht’s video “Outshine”, while her work “Crop” persuasively connects an otherwise irrelevant shadow and a false object, by shifting the viewer’s attention. 

With her performative act, Aylin Tekiner contributes to information manipulation processes. Bernd Oppl’s version of “Angular Field” addresses questions on the subjectivity of perception, and the interaction between the virtual space and the autonomous object. While his work “Sick Building” and “Delay Room” shift viewer’s perception of the architectural space, the work “Hotel Room” goes a step forward, presenting a subtly and slowly freezing impersonal hotel room. 

The exhibition “Inattentional Blindness” is accompanied by a catalogue, and will be on view through February 22. For more information and press images, please contact lal@galerizilberman.com



Artist Pages
  - Aylin Tekiner
  - Berat Işık
  - Bernd Oppl
  - Claudia Larcher
  - Liddy Scheffknecht
  - Sophie Dvořák
  - Şakir Gökçebağ