Exhibitions Releases

A Bitter Medicine for the Pandemic Conditions
at Borusan Contemporary

16 September 2020 Wed

Borusan Contemporary will greet the new season with BITTER MEDICINE #02, presented by the artist duo :mentalKLINIK as a prescription for the art world pushed to make drastic changes under the circumstances created by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The exhibition reveals an urgent perspective on the precautions taken for the sake of protecting public health and is an infinite and unrepeated movement of a performative installation that streams onto the digital realm 24/7 from Borusan Contemporary.

Borusan Contemporary present BITTER MEDICINE #02 by the artist duo :mentalKLINIK (Yasemin Baydar, Birol Demir)—established in Istanbul in 1998 and who continue their work both in İstanbul and in Brussels, Belgium—, a prescription for the art world pushed to make drastic changes under the circumstances created by the COVID-19 pandemic. The work will be launched on September 17, 2020.

The exhibition includes the site-specific installation Puff Out, installed in the main gallery space of the Haunted Mansion, and streamed live 24/7 through Borusan Contemporary’s website and social media channels. As the Haunted Mansion will be closed for visits for a while due to the public health precautions, this performative installation, which is transformed into a virtual, choreographic video narrative using moving camera systems, will be on view for art viewers around the world.

Live Streaming on Istiklal Avenue from the Borusan Music House.
The exhibition, highlighting the transformative impact of the pandemic on art as well as the emphasis Borusan Contemporary places on new forms of contemporary art, presents a new visual experience for the viewers. A new perspective on the relationship between space-artwork-viewer, which has changed under the current circumstances, is offered.

Curated by Dr. Necmi Sönmez, BITTER MEDICINE #02 will also be broadcasted on the screen installed in the window of Borusan Music House on Istiklal Avenue, 24/7.

Infinite and unrepeated motion

The installation Puff Out, which is made up of 8 robot vacuums and glitter, constitutes the exhibition, which will stream onto the digital platforms live from the Haunted Mansion, creating an infinite and unrepeated motion. The momentary and striking patterns created by the mission-oriented and autonomous motion of the robots on the colorful, shiny surface created by glitter, is going to be relayed online simultaneously through systems of live broadcasting and the viewers will be able to follow the installation digitally.
This “micro-climate” that :mentalKLINIK created at the intersection of various art forms including drawing, painting, installation, sculpture, performance, and video art, is striking in its presentation of a novel look at that “sate of ambiguity” that we are confronted with today. The exhibition refers to the shifting rhythm of contemporary life, cracking open the door on a different “world” shaped by lights that emerge suddenly and quickly. This visual journey succeeds in drawing in the viewers to the midst of “hyperrealism”, abstracted from spatial elements and thus brings up the strongest tool of digital aesthetics, the sensibility of “new beauty”.

The exhibition will last until January 31

BITTER MEDICINE #02 is a productive, questioning, provocative gesture against the ambiguity created by today’s surveillance technologies, data-driven precarious lives, technology and service-oriented subjectivities.

Designed as a series, the first version of the Bitter Medicine project was installed at the gallery space of Belgrade Contemporary Art Museum, which was closed due to public health concerns, and streamed live 24/7 on the museum’s website between May 5-June 30, 2020.

The exhibition will be streamed live 24/7 on the website and social media accounts of Borusan Contemporary between September 17, 2020 and January 31, 2021.

www.borusancontemporary.com

:mentalKLINIK
:mentalKLINIK is a Brussels-based artist duo from Istanbul,  composed of Yasemin Baydar & Birol Demir, who began their collaborative practice in 1998.
:mentalKLINIK strides with undisguised dexterity the invisible political strategies and the social dynamics by ultra-contemporary devices of an apparent lightness. Like a discoball, :mentalKLINIK shows are a selection of their multifaceted approach on their universe. Resisting to the limitations of a single vocabulary or style, their world is a playful one full of hedonistic appeal which can be experienced as festive and glamorous but also surprising as one approaches to discover with a closer view an underlying violence suggestive of a bad feeling after party or a creepy beginning of the end. Their works shift between emotional and robotic attitudes. It is all the work of encryption to which they summon us, between the true and the false, the artificial and the superficial, as if everything were a case of falsification.
www.mentalklinik.com
Instagram: Instagram.com/mentalklinik

Borusan Contemporary
Borusan Contemporary functions as a multi-platform program of exhibitions, events, educational activities, new commissions, and site-specific installations, all rooted in the Borusan Contemporary Art Collection. These activities are defined by their specific focus on media arts broadly defined, i.e. artists who work with time, light, technology, video, software and beyond. Most of the program takes place at the Haunted Mansion in Istanbul, the offices of Borusan Holding Company are located, in essence creating a unique art center within an office paradigm. The entire building including the galleries, office space, café, ArtStore, and outdoor terraces with breathtaking views of the Bosphorus are going to remain closed for a while due health precautions taken against to the pandemic. To keep up with Borusan Contemporary, you can visit our website, subscribe to our newsletter, and follow us on social media.
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Press Contact: Ezgi Atabilen / Tribeca İletişim Danışmanlık / ezgia@tribeca.com.tr / 0506 870 65 60

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