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Gizem Karakaş – We are not Innocent
10/01/2019 @ 11:00 - 17/03/2019 @ 19:00

10 January – 17 March 2019
Exhibition Design: Fuat Eşrefoğlu
Gizem Karakaş’s solo exhibition We are not Innocent will be on view on the second floor of Depo between the dates 10 January – 3 March, 2019. The exhibition which is designed by Fuat Eşrefoğlu brings together Karakaş’s recent photo, video, sound and text-based works. Understanding and reflecting on the human condition through her own past and relationships with a performative approach constitutes the main axis of Karakaş’s practice. In portraying different states of being, she focuses on personal fragilities, disappointments, weaknesses, obsessions and desires. She explores the concept of sincerity in relationships through the ambiguous areas that are left between the autobiographical and fictional narratives within her works. These stories depart from words that accompany her in her daily life; voices in her head, song lyrics, scenes from popular shows and movies, other people’s sentences and idioms get distilled and turn into narratives.
The subjects of Karakaş’s works oscillate between “I”, “you”, and “we” and in doing so her pieces question our relationships with ourselves and others and the common experiences we refrain from sharing. The lies that Karakaş tells herself, repetitive and obsessive hand gestures, guilty pleasures that manifest themselves in words of infusion, portraits that are drawn through dreams and advice, gifts that are preserved in various conditions and a couple’s break up scene that is enacted through popular song lyrics come together in forming an open-ended dialogue regarding the personal and social definition of victimhood. The exhibition, which spatially resembles a cozy home environment at certain parts, aims to create a sense of ease for the viewer. This environment also references the fact that holding onto pain, trauma and insecurities can become familiar and comfortable.
Gizem Karakaş (d. 1987) graduated with her BFA from École des Arts de la Sorbonne in Plastic Arts department in 2009, and received her MFA degree at the same university in Art and New Media department in 2011. She has participated in various group shows in places such as Pera Museum (İstanbul), Akbank Sanat (İstanbul), santralistanbul (Istanbul), Centre Pompidou (Paris), Kasa Galeri (İstanbul) among many others. Her first solo exhibition ‘Your Last Chance to Visit Studio’ took place at Galerist Studio in 2015. She is one of the founding members of HAH collective which has been active since January 2017 and she has been working with İpek Hamzaoğlu and Serra Tansel as Hayırlı Evlat since February 14, 2017. Karakaş has also been collaborating with Etem Şahin as Medyartiz on interactive performances since 2011.
Press
18 January 2019
Huo Soruyor: Gizem Karakaş
Art Unlimited
5 February 2019
Artist Gizem Karakaş Questions Who We Are
Hürriyet Daily News
5 February 2019
Masum da Değiliz Yalnız da
Milliyet Sanat
Photo credit: Rıdvan Bayrakoğlu