The Day Before Tomorrow

SENEM DENLİ,  HACER KIROĞLU,  NESLİHAN KOYUNCU

9 APRİL 2015 - 16 MAY 2015

Pilot will be hosting a group exhibition by 3 early-career women artists, from April 9 through May 16. Titled “The Day Before Tomorrow”, the exhibition features works from Senem Denli, Hacer Kıroğlu and Neslihan Koyuncu.

The first group show of the year focuses on 3 emerging women artists. “The Day Before Tomorrow”, which unites their work from different periods and in different media, attempts to present ruptures and continuity within today. Grounded on and aware of several artworks from different disciplines, the exhibition explores ways to create a whole new vocabulary*.

The idea that home and domestic objects are active in domesticating humans forms the basis of Neslihan Koyuncu’s work. Exploring the relationship between home and individuals, she employs found domestic objects such as nightstands, ironing boards and cheesecloth. Rather than the use value of them, she is interested in unveiling the secrets they hide. Koyuncu’s drawer combined with a briefcase crystallizes a moment when an everyday object is isolated from its functional context. The male figure’s relation with the world outside implies that life beyond the walls of home is an obligation (earn money) as well as an escape / fling. Inside the briefcase on top of the drawers is a woman’s underpant.

Senem Denli’s paintings that look like film stills, bear traces of her admiration for contemporary Greek cinema, European cinema as well as independent American movies. The childhood habit of looking at every magazine and family album has helped her to develop a visual language as much as the films she returns to, again and again. The paintings on display recall various characters, from Larry Clark’s adolescents and Spring Breakers’ girls to Miss Violence’s 13-year-old birthday girl in pink who jumped to her death at the opening scene.

Hacer Kıroğlu’s performative acts are not only a reflection of her obsessive behavior but also an artistic strategy as she turns the acts of wiping / clean(s)ing into a ritual. Kıroğlu is not interested in performing before an audience. Rather, she is focused on what is left behind once all is over; on how to document and display the remnants and what they tell about her. Thus, her performance-based works take many diverse forms including video and photography, wall texts and objects. Her love-hate connection with domestic chores (cleaning in particular) leads to Malevich’s White on White and to the scent of an eraser, respectively.

Senem Denli (b. 1982, Manisa) graduated from Mimar Sinan University Faculty of Fine Arts Department of Painting. She then pursued her studies at Academy of Fine Arts in Munich. Lives and works in Berlin.

Hacer Kıroğlu (b. 1985, Istanbul) attended Marmara University Faculty of Fine Arts where she earned a BFA and MFA. She studied conceptual arts at the Institute of Fine Arts in Vienna. She has exhibited in Germany, Russia, Belgium and Switzerland in addition to a number of group exhibitions in Turkey. 

Neslihan Koyuncu lives and works in Istanbul. She received her BA and MA in Visual Arts from Sabancı University, in 2008 and 2014. She works on a wide range of media, from installation and photography to sculpture and drawings.

PS.

*Martha Rosler’s 1975 video and performance piece “Semiotics of the Kitchen” is a feminist parody of Julia Child, the celebrated American chef and television personality. As she picks up and names the kitchen utensils, she reveals the violence inherent to domestic space.

*In Marina Abramović’s 1997 piece called “Balkan Baroque” we watch a video of her performance, which involves scrubbing bloody cow bones with a metal brush. The action of cleaning evolves into ethnic cleansing.

*The 2009 film “Dogtooth” tells the story of a strange and isolated family living in the suburb. The over-controlling parents assign new meanings for words and concepts. The children are said to be free when their dogtooth falls out. At the end, the elder daughter tries to step outside the circle by knocking out a dogtooth.