Installations - Bahar Yurukoglu Bahar Yurukoglu

Brains in a Golden Gratin

Organ Panic

September 5 – October 18, 2019 | artSumer | Istanbul

With her new solo exhibition Organ Panic at artSümer, Yürükoğlu offers the visitors a chance to enter her idiosyncratic world of sensory stimulation. Through the vertiginous pattern of the checkerboard floors, the shimmers from a disco ball above, the steady hum of a pipe organ she recorded during a trip, and the smell of incense, the artist pulls you into the sanctuary she has built. The double entendre of the exhibition title is undoubtedly intentional here; the space of Organ Panic functions both as a temple to color and light where you come and take a deep breath and escape the grey of everyday, and a daring invitation to see the insides of the artist. The saturated space of Organ Panic includes new photographic work both from Yürükoğlu’s studio and her travels, and also nods to the artist’s recent experimentation with painting, in line with her already established material vocabulary, technicolor palette and continuous engagement with refractions and reflections. Excerpt from text by Duygu Demir

Don’t worry, Don’t Worry, Don’t Think

Between September 15- 30 I took part in the Re_act Contemporary Art Laboratory 2018 Edition in the Azores Islands. The residency was centered around making work on the island of Terceira culminating in a group exhibition at the Musuem of Angra do Herosimo.

Apokapleksi

May 5 – May 21, 2018 | Red Bull Art Around Arnavutköy | Istanbul | Curated by Collective Cukurcuma | Plekiglas

The installation Apokapleksi (2018) took space on an abandoned plot of land in the Istanbul neighborhood of Arnavutköy. The work consisted of 17 translucent and reflective plexiglas pieces re-purposed from the installation Flow Through (2016). Under the curatorial theme of Ghosts, the installation Apokapleksi imagines a future ecosystem impacted by the consumption of non-recyclable materials today. A future where plastic grows from the earth and future archaeologists uncover plastic remnants and debris giving insight into how life was lived in the 21st century.

Divide and Conquer

September 26 – October 2, 2016 | Lock Up International | Istanbul | curated by Lewis Teague Wright | LED Lights, sound, potatoes, foil

This installation was hosted by Lock Up International, a transient project space housed in storage units around the world. This work was in response to the crowd mentality and gathering of people in Taksim Square after the attempted coup in Turkey in July 2015. The potatoes, symbolizing people are an affordable food group, farmed and historically eaten by the poor and a fast food staple of Turkish life. Within the space, a selection of popular music was played according to mood and preference. The lighting was created using LED strip lights purchased from the local outdoor market.

Flow Through

March 23 – May 7, 2016 | ARTER | Istanbul | curated by Duygu Demir | exhibition documentation by Ali Taptik

“Flow Through” was an exhibition inspired by my visits to Svalbard. Using an abstract visual language I wanted to bring the memory and experience of the landscape into a museum setting. The exhibition consisted of: three site specific installations “Plexiberg” 2016, (plexiglas, 4 channel video projection, sound: iceberg melting); “Waterfall” 2016, (reflective plexiglas, sound: footsteps in snow) and “Pingo” 2016 ( built MDF floor, 3 video monitors with animations embedded in floor, sound: Arctic Tern bird song and techno music. There was a series seven photographs; and a set of four light boxes. A projection room played the video “The Navigator” 2016 (13 minutes, 37 seconds). The entire space was cooled to 14 Celsius.

this place

January 2015 | maumau works | Istanbul, Turkey | 2 channel video projection, plexiglas, fake money, various decorations

The work in “this place” was a layered approach at examining the constant state of utopia and dystopia involved with living in a consumer society, instead of accessing this world from a natural landscape I looked at it from the landscape of economy. Like many developing countries, economically, Turkey is an aspirational society. As a photographic image can influence a person’s behaviors, so can architecture. This is prevalent in the way consumer spaces are built, particularly shopping malls. Lights, color and space are used to sell products that most people can’t afford. One of the layers of the installation included projections of videos made in the high end shopping malls of Istanbul. With “this place” I wanted to break down the power of the architecture by projecting those images of shopping malls onto the goods and materials that are vital to everyday life in Istanbul. These objects included water bottles I consumed during the period of the residency, the vinyl umbrellas sold and then discarded on every corner in Istanbul when it rains, and the decorations used at celebrations purchased from the pazar (also a distinct memory from my childhood). Accumulated and confined into the gallery space, “this place” was a representation of Istanbul as I experience it; chaotic, consuming and desirable. Simultaneously the installation was a manifesto outlining the factors and illusions driving the country towards an uncertain cultural, economic and political future, as in the LED sign highlight quotes from an economist about Turkey. I asked the viewer to recognize their place within the context of this society by creating an environment with familiar materials but inverting the way these materials are experienced. The juxtaposing of the images from shopping malls on to these familiar objects elevated them into a “higher class” of goods but also disseminated the aspirational language employed in the spaces of consumer worship.

Intimate Horizons

September 28 – November 2, 2014 | DISJECTA |Portland, OR | curated by Rachel Adams Miller | plexiglass, video projection

“Intimate Horizons pairs artists Claire Ashley and Bahar Yurukoglu to create an immersive, site-responsive exhibition examining the relationship between geometric abstraction, landscape and architecture. Curated by Rachel Adams, Intimate Horizons will be the first exhibition of the 2014-2015 Curator-in-Residence season at Disjecta.

Claire Ashley’s large-scale inflatable works reference organic architectural forms, situating and changing themselves to fit new environments. Interested in combining the mark of painting with the form of sculpture, Ashley will enliven the cavernous Disjecta space with her pop-culture palette. She will also collaborate with local dancers Keyon Gaskin and Jen Hackworth to activate two of her inflatables through improvised dance. The performance will take place during the opening reception.

Bahar Yurukoglu examines natural and artificial space through the creation of what she calls “neoscapes”. The process begins when she integrates brightly colored Plexiglass into rugged landscapes—such as Iceland, Wyoming or Montana—filming the resulting juxtaposition. Then, within the exhibition setting, she projects the images of these landscapes onto her Plexiglass installations, effectively inverting the interaction she previously established. At Disjecta, Yurukoglu’s immersive installation will highlight the tension inherent within her constructed images and contrasting processes.”

B-15 in collaboration with Claire Ashley

Self Titled

April 30 – June 6, 2014 | Nesrin Esirtgen Collection | Istanbul | curated by Bercin Damgaci | Plexiglass, 3 channel video projection

The solo show included the installation also titled “Self Titled” was my first solo exhibition in Istanbul. In many ways this was my introduction as an artist to Istanbul. I built an installation with plexiglas with a 4-channel video projection, and a series of photographs from Melting North, as well as the the video Pink Ice (2014).

Primordial Future

Using plexiglas to abstract the Icelandic landscape, the experiential space included moving images projected of the same plexiglas installed in the wall. The still life images were shot in the studio and based off of photographs made over the course of 24 hours of the midnight sun.

Nature Morte Redux

die Zukunft

April 2011 | MFA Thesis Exhibition | Bakalar & Paine Gallery at Massachusetts College of Art and Design | Boston, MA | Plexiglas, video projection

Ante Camera

January 2011 | Massachusetts College of Art and Design | Boston, MA | Plexiglas, 35 mm slide projector