One morning when you arrive at work, between 8.30-9.00 a.m., turn your back to the main entrance gate of your plaza and try to record on your memory camera the people rushing to their workplaces, each of them seeming to have different thoughts, but at the same time similar, like 'poker players', wearing masks with facial expressions that do not reveal their emotions, rushing past you...
People of all ages, genders, from all parts of the world, with different physical and skin characteristics... Tall, short, elegant, shabby, low-cut, low-cut, covered... They are running with their bags, laptops and cell phones in their palms, concentrating on their steps and speed in order to reach their “offices” on time, their daily arenas where they may have to use their skills and experiences to the fullest during the day...
The Elgiz Museum's new Temporary Exhibitions and Mezzanine event takes its name from Sean Henry's Plaza Worker, which is also the inspiration for the concept of the exhibition... Plaza Worker is a thought-provoking work open to different negative interpretations by the artist, who presents an office worker who uses his briefcase as a pillow, takes off his shoes and socks, barefoot, shrinks a little in a gray suit and sleeps or tries to sleep, trying to rest for the next day, on a transparent and high base similar to a 'psalm stone'...
With its Beybi Giz Plaza Terrace, the Elgiz Museum is trying to bring a different perspective to the positions of Maslak plaza employees with the importance it attaches to contemporary art and sculpture... Soon Sean Henry's man in a suit will put on his socks and shoes, brush his teeth, grab a cardboard cup of coffee and be at his desk at 9:00 sharp...
The other works selected for the Temporary Exhibitions section are also “open to interpretation” and mainly focus on a single figure using different materials and techniques... And these works can be divided into two groups. The first group consists of new acquisitions from the Terrace Exhibitions of 2012 - 2014 or previous museum exhibitions: Ömer Emre Yavuz, Hakan Bakır, Tanzer Arığ, Hande Şekerciler, Çağdaş Erçelik, Kağan Toros, Mahmut Aydın, Saim Gökhan Ercan, Rahmi Aksungur, Çayan Yılmaz, Derya Özparlak, Yunus Tonkuş.
The other group consists of purchases from internationally recognized sculptors, both old and new (Thomas Houseago, Tony Cragg, Seçkin Pirim) and includes works by Aron Zsolt Majoros, Luis Vidal and Oliver Blanckart, which have similarities and differences with the first group and essentially share the same concerns. The feeling that dominates all the works is “the loneliness and helplessness of the plaza worker in the crowd”. In a way, doesn't every plaza harbor King Ubi, Luis Vidal's little angry men, Oliver Blanckart's Hammal and individuals with other characteristics?
The important events of the last five years in which the Elgiz Museum focused on the art of sculpture, the 2012, 2013, 2014 Exhibition Installation videos of the Terrace, which will realize its 7th Exhibition with the Horizon Line, put the final point to the “Plaza Worker” exhibition as documentaries of the short history of the Terrace Exhibitions and can be viewed at the museum until September 19...
- Hashim Nur Gurel, 1. 5. 2015
Ortada: Tony Cragg, sağda: Çayan Yılmaz. Foto: Kayhan Kaygusuz
Soldan sağa: Saim Gökhan Ercan, Seçkin Pirim
Support Us Membership Categories
