Alpin Arda Bağcık included in the Krakow Modern Art Museum’s (MOCAK) Permanent Collection (16/11/2017)
In Alpin Arda Bağcık’s works, the viewer is usually confronted with the effects of power structures on society. In his work “Droperidol & Benperidol,” two symmetric scenes invite the viewer to question the accountability of these political moments. The symmetrical state of these tables conveys to the viewer that this order is an unchanging whole and in a sense, a replica of the perception of power. The politicians in the work decided in favor of the death penalty for leftist revolutionary Deniz Gezmiş and his friends. Society sees its position reduced to that of a bystander, watching those selected to represent them deciding about life and death of others in the name of “patriotism” and deriving questionable satisfaction from that.
“Rexapin,” inspired by a photograph taken by Catherine Henriette on the 20th of May,1989, depicts the moment of military intervention in the Tiananmen Square protests in Beijing in 1989. The country’s leaders forcibly suppressed these protests in the country’s capital by imposing a declaration of martial law. Although the government’s official figures indicate a much lower number, thousands of civilians were sentenced to death.