SENA BAŞÖZ
ON IMPERMANENCE :
Movement of Things
2023
This series of work that Sena Başöz created for her solo show titled "Inevitable Chroeography" open to the public between 16th December-24th February 2024 at Zilberman Gallery Istanbul focuses on cycles and movement of objects from Sena Başöz’s personal archive which bring into mind the movement of the body around these objects across space and time.
Başöz begins questioning movement as a tool for regeneration starting with her performance piece Slalom (2022), which investigates how a moving body can activate an institutional archive. Since then, the artist realized that, just like the body, objects also move and this mutual movement could be perceived as a choreography on the concept of impermanence.
Wind of Things
2023
The Artist's Bed - Four Chairs - Brown Sofa Set
Found furniture, fans and parachute fabric
Variable dimensions
Wind of Things is a series of installations of furniture. The parachute fabric attached to the furniture moves with the wind created by the fans. This movement expands through the spectrum of time. It could be the movement of ghosts of the past as well as an indication of the possibility of movement that is yet to occur. The piece takes furniture as pieces of a personal archive and the wind evokes stories that could be narrated expanding from the object. The artist's bed is hung like a portrait on the wall looking like it it shines white rays of parachute fabric. The brown sofa set is stacked on top of each other like a piece of landscape with white grass on it while the four chairs from the artist's studio are dispersed facing the strong wind acting like dream catchers with long strips of fabric passing through them.
Başöz perceives movement not merely as a fleeting attribute exclusive to the living, but rather as a catalyst for change and displacement even among inanimate objects.
G.After a Long Stroll
2002-2023
8 oil paintings on canvas made in 2002, one of which is in wrapping
50x70cm each
When an oil portrait young Başöz painted and dumped in trash turns up at an auction 20 years later, the artist begins to reflect deeply on the journey of objects. This seemingly personal but perhaps universal experience, reminding us of the cycles in life that come our way in different forms until they reach completion, not only reactivates the series titled G., After a Long Stroll (2002-2023), but also gives birth to brand new works. In Başöz’s new exhibition, we come across eight oil canvases hung on the wall in two rows. The portrait that strolls, circulates and returns is exhibited in a cargo package with a hole that falls on one of the eyes of the portrait. This eye looking at the viewer reminds us that what is lost, hidden, outmoded, or assumably unattainable operates with a sense of mourning beyond linear time (Text taken from "From Depths to Lightness: Notes on the New Exhibition of Sena Başöz" written by İpek Ulusoy Akgül for the exhibition catalogue).
Installation with an anchor, iron chain, rope, soft pastel on paper
Varying sizes
Found objects are also present in other works in the exhibition. For instance, Başöz’s new work, The Last Time I Saw the Anchor That Sunk into the Sea and The Anchor that Came out of the Sea Two Months Later (2023), is inspired by a sea voyage she went on with her artist friend Sevil Tunaboylu in the summer of 2023. This work reveals the themes of loss, lightness, discovery, and reunion that the separation from another object and the ensuing mourning unfold layer by layer. Başöz and Tunaboylu witness and respond in different ways to the unexpected plunging of a small sailing boat and an anchor into the depths of the sea in Bozburun last summer. Başöz depicts this event as the anchor disappears while Tunaboylu observes her artist friend. Unlike the accidental recovery of the lost painting, the retrieval of the anchor months after the incident by a diver, of course, requires effort. The anchor reappears as an installation displayed on the main wall together with the drawing and as another text in the exhibition catalogue. The exhibition of the charcoal drawing documenting the disappearing anchor and the object—the main character of the event—evoke together a sense of backwash in the viewer; it is as if what’s done is done and we are left with its remains (Text taken from "From Depths to Lightness: Notes on the New Exhibition of Sena Başöz" written by İpek Ulusoy Akgül for the exhibition catalogue).
The Last Letter of the Porcupine
2023
4 collages on paper using porcupine quills and envelopes
The artist comes across remains of a porcupine during a walk in nature. These four collages are attempts to grasp the purpose of a porcupine using its remains. The artists sees this effort as similar to using objects from a personal archive to narrate stories. The rectangular shape of the envelope is a repeating metaphor in the artist's practice for the rational mind. It remains an insufficient tool to understand nature.
A Farewell to My Armour
2023
Procupine quills on wall
50x70cm
The artist comes across remains of a porcupine during a walk in nature. Each quill is an evidence of a past turmoil or is a preparation for a future terror that has not never taken place. Placing them on a grid like structure in the same size of the portraits on the wall, the artist questions asks many questions at once on what remains after life and where art stands in this equation.
Autoportrait
2023
Acrylics on portrait photograps and a vintage fan
Varying sizes
Inevitable Choreography functions as a self-portrait, each work constituting a fragment of an elusive self. A key work consists of a domestic-scaled fan: attached to each blade is a photograph of the artist. As the fan turns, so do her many faces. She is one and all, and of course the inevitable time in between. Never seen for too long, the fan keeps turning (Text taken from "You’ve been in the House Too Long; On Sena Başőz’s Practice on the Occasion of Her Exhibition Inevitable Choreography" written by Maria-Thalia Carras for the exhibition catalogue).