Two artists meet on the ‘bridges of encounter’

The exhibition “The Bridge of Encounter” (Buluşma Köprüsü) first went on view at a cultural center in the Fatih district and then in January it was on view at the Naval Museum in Beşiktaş. Following its current run at the Kartal Bülent Ecevit Cultural Center until Feb. 15, the show will go on display in several other districts of İstanbul in the coming months, thanks to İstanbul 2010’s traveling art projects. Defining themselves as “İstanbul lovers,” the two artists have worked together for months in the same workshop to put together this exhibition, which depicts the artists’ love for İstanbul and their point of view of the city.

Encounters

The point of encounter means much more than a physical bridge between two continents for Ağar and Elçi. “Actually, we’ve thought about the name for a long time” says Ağar, in a recent interview with Today’s Zaman. “This exhibition brought the two of us together. This exhibition brought together our work. Our previous and recent work came together. We came together with the audience. Many things came together. However, this is a name attributed to İstanbul: İstanbul is a place of encounters itself.”

Both artists are not originally İstanbulites. However, they are both İstanbul lovers. “I am in fact from İzmir,” says Elçi, who has been living in İstanbul for 25 years, “but the first day I came to İstanbul, I was caught by its spell.” What struck Elçi was the intriguing character of İstanbul: “In every street you enter, there’s a surprise facing you. Every street, every corner is another surprise.”

“I paint my own İstanbul,” notes Elçi, “my work is very colorful because I paint the places I feel most and influence me the most of İstanbul.”

Ağar is influenced mostly by the historic aspects of İstanbul. “I feel this as my duty of paying homage,” indicates Ağar. “Maybe the desolation, the gloominess and the expectation of being discovered attracts me most. That’s why I travel street by street with Türkan.”

“I am not an İstanbulite either,” notes Ağar, “but I’ve been living in İstanbul since high school. My youth was passed here, I got married here, my children were born here.” However, the essential milestone for Ağar is much more different. “I began to live in İstanbul when I began to paint,” says Ağar. “That’s why my paintings are generally about searching. I am searching for my own past and myself which I started in İstanbul. This is a journey for me.”

“Some people ask us why we don’t just make paintings of landscapes from İstanbul,” says Ağar, “but we have a mission as artists. We want to raise awareness among people with whom we share our work.”

Interdisciplinary experiments

The exhibition includes albums of photographs taken and voices recorded in İstanbul and in previous exhibitions. “The voice recordings have come out very spontaneously,” notes Ağar. “We had recorded sounds of İstanbul in the streets, but we had not planned to record the voices of the visitors in the exhibitions. Now we record in the exhibitions so that we can bring them all together for the next exhibition.”

As for the photographs, both the artists love taking photographs; nevertheless, they don’t want their paintings to be overshadowed by the photographs. “Türkan and I travel around İstanbul. Our first target was the historic peninsula, but we go other places, too. We have thousands of photographs” says Ağar. “Maybe we can do some other projects with them in the future.”

Ağar’s “İstanbul Hatırası” (İstanbul Souvenir) is undoubtedly one of the most interesting works in the exhibition. Composed of two main parts, every part of the work seems like a new painting when viewed from different sides. “I am mostly influenced by the miniature in that work,” says Ağar, “and I wanted to establish an interaction with the audience. I wanted to create an area of freedom for the audience.”