Köken Ergun, The Flag (video still), 2006, 9 min. Courtesy of the artist.

The word ‘sampling’ suggests two basic meanings. The first, derived from statistical analysis, is the (sometimes random) taking of a sample or samples from data to be examined and using this to verify a hypothesis. The second meaning, drawing on the same basic practice of choosing, comes from its use in music. Samples from past music are chosen and re-encoded into a new composition; ‘re-sampling’ is a form of musical collage that takes familiar sounds and — through their re-working — creates new music. Locus Athens’ disclaimer — that the exhibition of Turkish artists in Athens is not exemplary of a movement or Turkish art in general — suggests a certain randomness, a statistical methodology that seemingly avoids curatorial decisions (and criticism about them) through positing a non-methodology, or more specifically an ideological screen of non-commitment, in the face of plurality.

This is probably fair enough, when making decisions about a modest exhibition that cannot hope to satisfy everyone in presenting the ideologically laden idea of ‘Turkish contemporary art’ in neighbouring Greece. Every possible choice can be countered with another and, in an unforgiving climate of both aesthetic pluralism and political paranoia, it’s perhaps better to suggest a pseudo-statistical method than posit an aesthetic criterion. I suspect, however that this is perhaps a cover, because the curators of this small show in the Museum of Popular Art and Culture in Plaka, have in fact carefully chosen the seven young-ish artists (all born between 1974 and 1981). Their art works together well enough to suggest an aesthetic that gives lie to the notion of this being a survey of art being made now in Turkey. When compared to the works in the Istanbul Modern, which offer a history of Turkish modernism (with collections organised around narratives such as ‘From Ottoman Empire to Turkish Republic’) and more established contemporary artists organised stylistically (such as ‘Abstraction and Interpretation’), it is clear that Locus Athens made deliberate choices about what sort of contemporary art they wanted to present in Athens. This is based, as they write in the catalogue, on the fact that the curators ‘found that there were numerous artists producing challenging and sensitive work that did not self-consciously avoid national and political agendas but neither was defined by them.’

On this level, this exhibition presents some interesting works. Ahmet Öğüt uses performance, photography and video to enact an iconic revenge on institutions of repression and, memorably, vehicles: from armoured jeeps to police cars, through taxis and a small maroon hatchback in death kit train, 2005. With an (anti-)heroic humour that quietly prods existing power structures, he subtly expands the limits of art-making as a political act by imagining the impossible and, in the guise of comedy, carrying it out. Quiet and softly spoken in person, Öğüt’s older works include a Coloring Book, 2004 (with Sener Özmen), that juxtaposed line drawings of Kalashnikovs, Anatolian family scenes and visitors to contemporary art galleries with refreshing clarity that avoids simple conclusions. Cengiz Tekin, another artist from Diyabarkir in Kurdish South Eastern Turkey, uses still photographic set-pieces to work through the burdens of tradition and belonging. The works’ melancholy is balanced by a morbid irony that makes them intriguingly engaging.

Köken Ergun, on the other hand, produced two of the exhibition’s most overtly political statements. Walking into the show on the opening night, visitors were faced with an airport security scanner and asked to empty their pockets for screening. Homeland Security, 2008, put a real security check in an absurd situation (an art opening) to highlight the rituals of anti-terror measures. The obverse side of this act, however, is perhaps more shocking: could an art show that tackles political issues seriously, avoid the violence such a machine claims to exclude? In the context of a Turkish art exhibition in Athens, this reviewer temporarily believed that nationalist extremists had threatened the show and forced the organisers to protect it. Furthermore, as a public building (the Centre of Popular Art and Tradition is staffed by municipal workers), it ‘could’ conceivably be the target of someone (aren’t all the important ministries and government buildings guarded?). This idea however is double edged: security measures also imply a certain twisted legitimacy in the hierarchies of political power and their presence at an art opening also acts as a totem against a worse fate (and one that points to an unspoken political motivation for visible security generally): that of being ignored.

Ergun’s other piece, a nine-minute video called The Flag, 2006, required a warning from the curators in the form of a contextualising note outside the projection room taken from Azra Tuzunoglu’s introduction in the exhibition catalogue. The video, she wrote, shows ‘how Turkey, like many other countries, raises its citizens on nationalist propaganda from childhood onwards, through the eyes of an observer rather than commentator.’ The video does exactly that; coolly recording bloodcurdling nationalist rhetoric (subtitled) and children at an event marking 23 April, which is both Children’s Day and the anniversary of the first Turkish Parliament in 1920. The note, a break in the otherwise minimal curatorial presence, points to an issue the exhibition faced in Greece. By reproducing Turkish nationalist rhetoric, the artist broadcast Turkish nationalist propaganda in a Greek municipal building. Of course, the experienced art goer already knows that a prima facie example of nationalist rhetoric in a contemporary art exhibition is in fact imploring us to look beyond the nationalist kitsch that links children to sacrifice to nation. Instead, we should see the workings of power inscribing itself on the young; but in case some viewers missed the irony, the note reminds them.

The Flag puts us in the position of observers at the stadium on 23 April, virtual tourists at the spectacular display of nationalism, albeit with the intellectual distance to avoid being moved by the kitsch. It’s this kitsch that asks us to shed, as Kundera wrote, two tears:

‘The first tear says: how nice to see children running on the grass!
The second tear says: how nice to be moved, together with all mankind, by children running on the grass.’
— Milan Kundera, Unbearable Lightness of Being

In this particular instance, we are unlikely to be moved by watching a projection of boy and girl scouts standing on the grass like an army, reciting macabre vows and hugging uniformed middle-aged men whilst remaining endearingly childish. By mobilising kid-kitsch against itself, we are — to go back to Kundera — forced to notice the smell of metaphorical shit that is constantly denied through sentimental notions of nationhood, innocence and unity. But then again, isn’t the idea that we view nationalist spectacles ironically in an art context, a reassuring third tear of relief? A relief that we, as members of the group of knowing contemporary art viewers safe in an exhibition, have moved above and beyond taking part in such rituals, except of course, as ‘observers’?

So returning to the notion of ‘sampling’, a third meaning emerges. In this case we ‘sampled’ high-quality new art from young Turkish artists who are breaking into the art world. Nonetheless, we need to engage with them beyond recognising our mutual adherence to a post-political art world-view and ‘sampling’ their produce. Locus Athens have succeeded in showing us this work and linking it with a building with historic and architectural significance in central Athens: this recontextualisation is in itself an achievement. However, when I spoke to Ahmet Öğüt in Istanbul in 2006, and asked him whether it is hard being a Kurdish artist in Turkey, his reply surprised me: ‘No it’s comfortable — everyone wants to use me as a kind of  “other”. But because of that, I have to be careful all the time, otherwise they can manipulate me, or my art.’ This trap is perhaps relevant to the difficulties of making a Turkish show in Greece. Sampling is a good start in terms of introducing these artists to Athens, but we have to be wary — as the curators, by choosing this title seem to be — of using this as excuse to shed any sentimental tears, however knowing and ironic, for our neighbours as safe ‘others’ and work hard to engage with them seriously.


Sampling showed the works of Fikret Atay, Koken Ergun, Leyla Gediz, Ozlem Gunyol, Mustafa Kunt, Ahmet Ogut, Cengiz Tekin. Curated by Locus Athens.

Sampling: Seven Turkish Artists
Centre of Popular Arts & Traditions, Athens
13 March – 11 May 2008


Leonidas Liambeys is an artist based in Athens.