Borusan Art Gallery, Istiklal Caddesi No:421 80060 Beyoglu-Istanbul-Turkey
Opening reception September 20
September 20 – November 8, 2003
Curator: Michele Thursz in collaboration with Anne Barlow
The Birth of Venus: Sandro Botticelli’s fifteenth century painting; an Andy Warhol wristwatch; the Adobe software logo for “Illustrator”. A visual "icon" can be steeped in history and associations with religion, art, popular culture, personalities, mass media, computer technology, or any combination of these. The practice of copying, stealing, and sharing icons has been around for centuries, but new communication platforms (such as the internet, handheld devices, and interactive cinema) offers artists—and viewers—new ways of doing so.
Whether artists work with new media, or with more “traditional” art forms such as painting, the technologies, practices, or aesthetics of digital culture filter through the work of all the artists in this show - adding new and layered dimensions to the acts of copying, stealing, and sharing. The meanings of icons continue to shift, reconstructing information and open up new ways in which a story is told.
Copy it, steal it, share it is a group exhibition that looks at icons as archetypal structures, as sources of knowledge that generate an on going contemporary dialogue. The exhibition includes works on paper, drawing, paintings, cinema, net, mosaic and public installations by Monika Bravo, Andy Deck, Godfried Donker, Ellen Gallagher, Space Invader, Reynold Reynolds, Carlo Zanni, and Marina Zurkow
Monica Bravo’s (South America) work “Playing With Time” video uses the U.S. landing on the moon as a pivotal time in U.S. history and an indelible imprint in our memory. Andy Deck’s (USA) Internet project Glyphiti, is a multi-user collaborative drawing platform calling on the spirit of graffiti. Godfried Donker’s (UK) Paintings, Financial Times silhouettes, Tyson draw on the relationship of economy and iconic forms, by translating words figuratively and drawing on the myths, idols historic structures. Space Invader (France) Invasion a mosaic and public installation exposes the fusion of the subculture of video games and graffiti, Carlo Zanni’s (Italy) oil paintings of software logos and desktop icons.
Michele Thursz is an independent curator, based in New York. Her current
project is Post Media Network located at http://www.michelethursz.com. Previously she founded and directed Moving Image Gallery. Her recent
curatorial, production projects include “Brain Girl”+ “e” + “Pussy Weeval”,
NYC,“Nown”, Pittsburgh, PA, “Fetish: Human Fantastic” Borusan Gallery,
Istanbul.
Anne Barlow, Curator of Education and Media Programs at the New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York, has organized numerous exhibitions, residencies, new media and public art projects in the UK and U.S.A. Her recent New Museum projects include “Trust Me”; “Graham Gussin:States of Mind”; “lab[au]: polygon den[c]ities”; “Videodrome II” and “Killer Instinct” (with Rachel Greene, for December 2003).
For more information contact:
Binnaz Tukin ,
Director
Tel :212 - 292 06
55