Tuesday 13.01.2010, 6.00 pm Nuri Ziya Sokak No 7 Beyoğlu Istanbul TR BAS introduces a new series of talks. With this series, BAS would like to develop a critical thinking about artists’ books and will look into the medium historically through the practices of different artists working with the printed matter. info: http://basbent.blogspot.com/

 

BAS is working on a contemporary and local artist’s book production and its international distribution. BAS has a growing collection of existing artist’s books that is made available to the public. In addition to this, a new series of projects is started. The first event will be an exhibition of artist’s books by Sol LeWitt. It will be accompanied by the first of a series of talks where artists can select, talk about, describe or analyze artists’ books. The first guest speaker will be Antoni Muntadas. The practice of making artist’s books goes back to the 19th century. It reached its peak during the 60’s, the period of conceptual art. Artists of that time believed in the idea that books could be a cheap and democratic way to disseminate works beyond political borders. Sol LeWitt was one of the most important artists of conceptual art and minimalism. He used books as a vehicle for his ideas and as an alternative space in which to exhibit his work to a wider audience. The books frame the artist’s systematic rationalism and its extreme consequences, as well as addressing the broader issues crucial to the evolution of the artist’s book since the mid-1960s.

 

BAS just moved to a new space: Nuri Ziya Sokak No: 7. We have a larger space. With our new display system we can now show our growing artist’s book collection in a more efficient way. Bent, our series of artists’ books that has been running since 2006, is expecting a new addition: Bent 006 is in proces

 

24.05.2008, 20:00 - 23:30 One Night Stand will take the form of a small “book fair” held in the courtyard of KW Institute for Contemporary Art with diverse international participants presenting print projects, explaining them to whoever asks, and selling them if they want. The common denominator of the participants invited to show their wares as part of One Night Stand is that the results of their serial collaborative experimentations with printed matter results in publications that can be seen as autonomous artworks. Most are independent print projects initiated by artists. One Night Stand includes publications in some way out of the ordinary and worth special attention and unusual either in form, content, or in the attitude and motivation behind them.

 

22.05.2008, 19:00 - 22:00 Masist Gül (1947-2003) was an artist of Armenian origin, who was born and lived in Istanbul. Gül was a Turkish actor who played in over 300 movies, mostly obscure in which he played small roles. Because of his body-builder physique he was often cast as the villain or the brute. He was also an extraordinary artist, producing a large amount of collages, drawings and poetry which no one, except a few close friends, ever saw. An autodidact, he taught himself specific techniques like copper engraving. Almost all his work is a reflection on his own life, speaking mostly of the hardship and loneliness he experienced. The protagonists in his work are without exception his mirror images. At the same time his body and appearance were meticulously and consistently constructed upon an idea he had about himself: a role, an ideal, or simply an inescapable fact? During the 80’s Gül conceived and made by hand a series of 6 books with the title “Kaldırım Destanı – Kaldırımlar Kurdunun Hayatı” (Pavement Myth – The Life of the Pavement’s Wolf) using a periodical comic book format. The story takes place between 1905 and 1978. It is written in Turkish and is impossible to translate without significant loss of meaning as he wrote everything in rhyme, using the language in a highly personal way. The first existing reproductions of these originals are published as Bent 001*. *Bent is a series of artists’ books from Turkey, initiated and produced by BAS** and Philippine Hoegen. The six books by Masist Gül appeared as Bent 001-1/ 6. Bent 002 is a phrase-book crime story by Aslı Çavuşoğlu and Bent 003 is an archive of parts followed by dystopian scenes by Emre Hüner.

 

An Interrupted History of Punk and Underground Resources in Turkey 1978-1999 researches the development of the Punk and underground movement in Turkey. With interviews with local bands and witnesses of the period, over a hundred visuals and the complementary CD, this book is the first of its kind and is a fascinating source on Punk and its place in Turkey’s recent cultural history.(2007: Istanbul, 575 pages + cd / ISBN 978-605-0025-00-2)

 

The List is a document which contains the names of more than 7000 (known) refugees who died within, or on, the borders of Europe. It is being compiled by UNITED for Intercultural Action - a non-profit organisation composed of a network of more than 560 organisations from 49 different countries (www.unitedagainstracism.org). For this project the List was displayed as a poster campaign in 110 MUPI's - outdoor advertising signs- throughout the city of Amsterdam for the duration of two weeks, March 14 - March 28, 2007. The poster campaign was not commercially designed and did notcontain any advertising, but only contained the List itself. The project commenced with a seminar held at SMCS on 11, in which an international group of artists, filmmakers, photographers and academics presented work in the context of the list. Participants: Marjoleine Boonstra, filmmaker and photographer; Ad van Denderen, photographer; Marina Grzinic is a researcher at the Institute of Philosophy at the Slovenian Academy of Science and Art in Ljubjana, Slovenia, and lecturer at the Academy of Visual Arts, Vienna; Martin Krenn, artist. In his work he investigates and treats social/political issues;l Willem van Weelden is a researcher, writer, visual artist and lecturer in the field of interactive media; Zelimir Zilnik has been making and producing films in the former Yugoslavia since the 1960s. Throughout the week an information center was made available to the public at SKOR's INkijk, in the center of Amsterdam. Here supplementary information about the 'Death List' and the many other international initiatives dealing with the issues of Europe being a fortress and the fate of refugees was made available to the public. The purpose of this project was, to confront a general audience with this crucial document by making it visible within the public sphere. The urgency to do so lies in the consistent portrayal of Europe having an 'inside' and an 'outside'. The representation of Europe as a fortress - through political discourse and therefore news agencies - leads to singular notions of 'us' and 'them'. However, we are at a moment where the borders of Europe are in a process of redefinition and where what is external today can be internal tomorrow. Rather than portray Europe as an enclosed and limited entity, one could consider embracing the uncertainty of its boundaries as something positive and unlimited. The List as it is proposed here, however, is not merely meant as a socio-political project, but as an experiment in exploring the borders and the scope of artistic practise. From this, it seeks out the limits of critical potential of the 'cultural institute' as well. What role can art play in the discussion on - and depiction of - Fortress Europe and migration? From what position can it do so?

 

As a collaboration with the 1st Athens Biennale and TA NEA the List has been published in its complete form of 16 pages and distributed as a supplement in the Greek daily newspaper on September 28th. The List is a project that was started in 2003 as collaboration between the artist Banu Cennetoglu and curator Huib Haye van der Werf. The List itself is a document, which contains the names of more than 8855 (known) refugees who died within, or on the borders of Europe. It is compiled by the organization UNITED for Intercultural Action. During a previous installment in March 2007 The List was displayed as a poster campaign in 110 outdoor advertising signs throughout the city of Amsterdam.

 

From the series “Bent, artists books from Turkey”, a new release will be launched on Thursday 8th at BAS. Bent, a collaboration between BAS and Philippine Hoegen, has produced 7 books between May 2006 and February 2007. The most recent book, Bent 003, is by Emre Hüner. Like a collector, Hüner builds an archive of things. Painting them by hand in tempera, he groups and categorizes each element and files it on a page. The archive is followed by the unfolding of a layered world. Dystopian images of laboratories, mines and ice-lands where human industry and invention are fringed by decay and decomposition. Every single detail in the images is to be found in the archive on the first pages. Digitally cloning, fitting, attaching the parts, Hüner constructs a whole as it suggests itself from the parts.

 

 

BAS was invited to Salon Light #3, a book fair for 50 european art publishers that took place 11-12 November in Paris.