Altındere’s sharp ironic sense finally given proper showing in İstanbul

But despite his prominence, and the fact that his works have been exhibited many times both in Turkey and abroad, he had never before had a solo exhibition here until this week.

Block credits Altındere with having introduced into the Turkish art scene a sense of “productive disruption,” a feeling of uneasiness both in terms of the subject matter of Altındere’s works and the ways in which he presents these subjects. Themes such as crime and the challenge of authority are central issues in his oeuvre and the exhibitions he has curated. His current show, “If I Can’t Dance, It’s Not My Revolution,” opening Thursday at the newly launched Pilot Gallery in İstanbul’s Sıraselviler neighborhood, features new examples of these disruptions.

Located at the center of the gallery, a colorful, life-sized police patrol car, a tribute to the Gürel-brand toys of Altındere’s childhood, greets the audience. “These toys made out of cans were the symbols of an era. Many boys grew up playing with them. I wanted to see what kind of an effect it would create if I made a life-size version of a toy I used to play with in my childhood,” Altındere explained in an interview with Today’s Zaman.

Naturally, the choice of a police car evokes some of the struggles with authority the artist has faced over the last two decades, including legal suits and various forms of censorship.

Another piece, a gold-plated closed-circuit camera perched on a tall pole, is located just a couple of meters away from the police car, as if to remind both the artist and the viewer that all the political statements behind these works are subject to observation and scrutiny. “Closed-circuit cameras are quite widespread in our lives. I attempted to convert it into a fetishized object by making it out of gold,” Altındere said.

Three oil-on-canvas paintings, not a very common medium for the artist, are based on photographs representing the recent history of Turkey through its political leaders. The first one, initially a black-and-white photograph taken from the archive of the Republican People’s Party (CHP), was taken during a speech by former Prime Minister Bülent Ecevit in 1977 just after he and his bodyguards received news of an impending assassination attempt. “We see the expression of fear and anxiety on Ecevit’s face that sums up the prevalent spirit of those years. I chose that frame because that fear embodies the political conflicts of the ‘70s,” Altındere explained.

The second canvas depicts former President Turgut Özal and his wife, Semra, together with Turkey’s first woman minister, İmren Aykut, and other members of Parliament. Everybody in the picture is in evening dress and seems quite happy. Meanwhile, Semra Özal is holding a pistol, apparently aiming at a target not pictured. “The relief that came with neoliberal policies also enabled women in Turkey to come to the fore. For the first time Turkey had a first lady as a public persona and she gathered wealthy women of the period around various campaigns,” Altındere remarked. The richness of the period is highlighted even in the clothing in the picture -- embodied through all the jewelry, the satin fabric and cobalt blue colors. “It shows all the relaxation in the ‘80s,” Altındere added.

Conspicuously absent from the series is any painting dealing with the 1990s. Altındere said he did not want to make a painting about the ‘90s since “those years are pretty dark in my memory.”

Altındere was born and raised in southeast Turkey during the worst years of the Kurdish conflict. In that period JİTEM, an illegal intelligence unit inside the gendarmerie, was responsible for more than 4,500 disappearances and murders in the predominantly Kurdish region of the country and more than 3,000 towns were forcibly evacuated. This was also the time of scandals that revealed ties between the Turkish government, the armed forces and organized crime. “Both because those years are full of bad events and also due to the lack of a charismatic leader, I skipped the ’90s,” Altındere explained.

The last painting in the series depicts a famous image of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan with former Chief of General Staff Gen. İlker Başbuğ and other officers kneeling in a sandbag foxhole on a mountain in the Southeast. The photograph has been seen by many in Turkey as representing the end of the conflict between the current government and the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK), though clearly its location symbolizes the continuing of other conflicts to this day. “This was a photograph that everybody commented on and I believe it summarizes all kinds of openings that took place in the 2000s,” the artist noted.

On a wall adjacent to this series chronicling the social, economic and political changes of Turkey’s recent history, a series of photographs by Altındere reminds the viewer that some things haven’t changed in Turkey. Three portraits of transsexual individuals reflect parts of Turkish society that have been omitted from its official history. “Transexuality is a very problematic sphere in Turkey. On the one hand, some transsexuals are idols on TV channels and in the music sector. On the other hand they are constantly remembered through events on the third pages of newspapers. I wanted to show this homophobic, hypocritical face of Turkish society,” he says. One of the transsexuals in the series, dressed up as if in a beauty contest with a sign that reads “Miss Understood,” perfectly reflects the lack of understanding and terrible treatment these people face. Another photograph, a transsexual nurse with an attractive body, portrays this hypocrisy through the way in which Turkish society treats transsexuals both as sexual objects and objects of disgust.

It is fitting that these reflections on official history and those marginalized by it are both positioned behind Altındere’s toy police car and golden security camera, as the police in Turkey are always positioned at precisely this disjuncture, ensuring that the marginalized do not exceed the spaces allotted to them. That the symbol of this authority is turned into a life-sized toy car is part of Altındere’s unique sense of humor, which he brings to the most bitter of realities.

Block, the show’s curator, says on the one hand Altındere’s work is very political but that it also incorporates a fantastic element of sharp irony. “It’s not something that really should make us laugh, but it should make us think and smile in a way. By smiling we get a certain distance from the thing. Irony is a very, very important fact in my life and it is also very important in Halil’s art and life,” he emphasized.

“If I Can’t Dance, It’s Not My Revolution” also features Altındere’s other new series, including a set of golden necklaces referencing quotations from American anarchist activist Emma Goldman and a series of photographs inspired by the movies of Turkish director Metin Erksan. The show will run through Nov. 12 at Pilot Gallery in Sıraselviler. For more information, visit www.pilotgaleri.com.