This year´s national focus at NordArt is on Turkey. With his selection of artworks for the Turkish Pavilion, Curator Kemal Tufan wants to bring hope and joy to the people. To editor-in-chief Kristof Warda, he explained why contemporary art has no borders, happiness is a choice and curating is like mixing a cocktail.
Kristof Warda: Dear Kemal, first, thank you for your time. I can see that you and your team are very busy preparing the pavilion for the exhibition.
Kemal Tufan: Yes, today is a hectic day. There are still so many things we must finish because we go back to Turkey tomorrow and will come back for the opening in two weeks. But I can use a little break to catch my breath. So, thank you for the opportunity.
Kristof Warda: You´re welcome. Looks like a win-win-situation. So let´s talk about art.
Kemal Tufan: Ok. Let´s start with why I´m here.
Kristof Warda: Hmm, well, I prepared some questions, but ok, that sounds like a good topic to begin with. Thank you for doing my job. So, Kemal, tell me, why are you here?
Kemal Tufan: My partner Ayla [Turan] and I exhibited at NordArt a couple of times. So, we`ve known Inga [Aru] and Wolfgang [Gramm] for quite some years now. One day they asked me if I could curate the Turkish Pavilion. Of course, I said “yes” without thinking!
Kristof Warda: Besides being an artist, you graduated in Industrial Engineering, worked as a choreographer, stage designer, actor and dancer in Istanbul, taught sculpture as an adjunct professor at Marmara University and you curated international sculpture symposiums all over the world such as in Brazil, Mexico and Turkey. So you have experience in curating.
Kemal Tufan: Ok, looks like you did your homework. Yes, I have experience in curating. But still, I consider myself an artist rather than a curator.
Kristof Warda: … and now the artist curates the Turkish Pavilion at NordArt …
Kemal Tufan: Exactly! I am happy to have the opportunity to present Turkish contemporary artists here at NordArt. It is also a good opportunity to promote NordArt in Turkey. NordArt is an important exhibition for contemporary art and one of the largest in Europe.
Kristof Warda: What are you presenting to the audience in the Turkish Pavilion?
Kemal Tufan: First, let me say that art has no country and no borders. As contemporary artists, we try to work internationally, we try to communicate with everybody, to speak to everybody in the world with our artworks. That’s why Ayla and I exhibited at NordArt before, for example. Not as Turkish artists but as contemporary artists. So, the visitors of the Pavilion will see the works of 17 artists that might live in Turkey, but most of them are known internationally and exhibiting all around the world. Still, Turkey is a country full of contrasts and contradictions.
So, you can find a very modern, urban Turkey, but you also have the rural and traditional side. You can find people in misery and poverty, right next to people enjoying their indescribable wealth. There is progression and tradition, suffering and abundance. And these contrasts and contradictions surrounding us are feeding our creativity as artists. They are our source of inspiration and productivity. Turkey is a huge country but when it comes to contemporary art, it is rather small. The countries´ art scene has a vibrant centre, which is the city of Istanbul. On the one hand, it´s good for me, because I am living there, but it is bad on the other hand, because there is no balance throughout the country. You can find contemporary cultural life in other cities like Ankara or Izmir as well, but Istanbul is clearly the centre. Maybe because it is the biggest city in Turkey. Or maybe also because the city itself contains so many contrasts. It is situated half in Europe, half in Asia and has a rich and contradictory history and meaning for different cultures.
For the Pavilion I chose artworks that bring hope and joy to the viewer. We need hope and joy, because there is enough suffering nowadays, not only in Turkey, but all over the world. There are wars, there is hunger, there are natural disasters like the recent earthquake in Turkey and Syria, there are politically chaotic situations – all these things that are pulling us – and our morality – down. We do not need to see all that duplicated at art exhibitions.
Kristof Warda: So, basically, despite the disasters or maybe even because there are all these bad things going on in the world, you chose to show happiness. That makes me think of that one painting by Yiğit Yazıcı you are presenting here. It is called “Happiness is a Choice”. Does that slogan sum up your message?
Kemal Tufan: Yiğit Yazıcı is a good friend of mine. As you can see, his paintings are very colourful and full of joy and hope. In one of his paintings, he uses this slogan. Yeah, happiness is a choice. It´s true, in a way. But it is also true that you need certain conditions, certain basics you can rely on to choose so. It´s very hard to choose happiness, let´s say, when you lose everything because of a war or an earthquake. But we as artists, we can choose whether to reproduce the chaos and the misery that surrounds us, or to create something that brings happiness and joy to the world. In my opinion, we must try to do the latter, even though it is not always easy.
Another artwork spreading joy is Erdil Yaşaroğlu´s Stray Dog. It makes people smile. Erdil is a cartoon caricaturist and sculptor. He brought his humorous perspective and playful characters from the piece of paper to sculpture, from 2- to 3-D. Or take the children walking on stilts by Ayla. Everyone loves their smile. She used white as a colour of innocence and purity. So this artwork exudes hope, the hope that we can have in the future generation.
Kristof Warda: In contrast to that, you are also showing Server Demirtaş´s moving sculpture “Scream”: An old woman silently screaming out, which you placed in the “black box” …
Kemal Tufan: The “Scream” is a sculpture that Server dedicated to his father, who has a very special place in his life. The artist thiks, there are manytraces of him in the sculpture. But in the conceptual sens it looks as a reference to the deep loneliness of man and seld-awareness and to the peculiar emptiness of all this.
Kristof Warda: Since you have been to NordArt before, you knew NordArt atmosphere and the pavilion´s space and its dimensions very well. Did you come here with a plan what to show where?
Kemal Tufan: I knew the space, and I knew NordArt in general, yes. And so I had basic ideas what could suit well. But I tried not to plan too much before I had convinced the artists to participate. Because that is the first step. I´ve known them all for quite a long time, so I also more or less knew what kind of work they would create. So, after I had their confirmation, I was able to start planning. You know, curating is like mixing cocktails. You choose the right ingredients and the right amount of it, you even choose the glass to serve the cocktail, and when you mix it, it becomes more than just the sum of its pieces, you create something new. But it´s almost impossible to create the perfect cocktail in theory. You have to try out, you have to taste. I knew NordArt, so I knew the glass I serve the cocktail in. I selected the artworks, so I know the ingredients. But now the challenge is how to mix them. Being here, positioning the artworks in the space – you get so many new ideas by actually doing it, and you start to try things out, put this sculpture here, that painting there, let the artworks correspond with one another and with the space… It´s fun, and if I had the time I could do it forever. But it is important that at a certain point you say: “Ok, that´s it”. I hope I said “That´s it” at the right time and people will enjoy the exhibition.
Kristof Warda: I can see your point. It´s similar in my profession. I could talk to you for hours, but maybe now is a good time to say “That´s it”. Kemal, I know, you have a cocktail to mix. Thank you so much for your time and all the best for the exhibition.