Solo show @ Fondazione Giuliani, Rome

Ahmet Öğüt
Once upon a time a clock-watcher during overtime hours
curated by Adrienne Drake

30 April–23 July 2011

Preview:
Thursday, 28 April 2011
6:00 to 9:00pm

Fondazione Giuliani per l'arte contemporanea
Via Gustavo Bianchi 1
00153 Rome Italy

www.fondazionegiuliani.org

With a keenly perceptive and sharp wit, Ahmet Öğüt examines everyday happenstance, modes of behaviour and informal gestures which bear witness to broader global social and political structures. Through diverse means of expression, from installation and performance to drawing, video and interventions in public space, Öğüt weaves loose narratives that meander between artistic practice and social life to provoke critical consciousness and subtle shifts in perspective.

In Once upon a time a clock-watcher during overtime hours, Öğüt's solo exhibition at the Fondazione Giuliani, the artist moves his practice in a new direction, using an art collection as source material. Öğüt has selected works by Marina Abramovic, Giovanni Anselmo, Carl Andre, Mircea Cantor, Peter Coffin, Cyprien Gaillard, Joseph Kosuth and Sislej Xhafa from the Giuliani Collection to create "atmospheres" or interventions around each work which call attention to the characteristics of the works themselves, while also appropriating them to create multi-layered narratives with an open trajectory to generate and expand upon new meanings. Underlining these interventions is the consideration that no artwork has one single reading but is open to subjective interpretation. While paying homage to the works by these artists, Öğüt questions authorial originality and intentionality. He creates visual texts, which invite the viewer to really ponder a work of art while formulating new considerations and multiple readings.

Interspersed throughout the exhibition spaces are a body of artworks by the artist himself, several of which have been produced specifically for the show. These works underscore Öğüt's continuing interest in time, sociological structures and mechanisms of surveillance and control. The 16mm film collage, Wikipolis, juxtaposes a scene from Metropolis, Fritz Lang's seminal 1927 film on urban dystopia, with an image of a former nuclear bunker in Stockholm that now houses a data centre with 8,000 computer servers, two of which belong to WikiLeaks. The interactive installation, River Crossing Puzzle, transforms a traditional children's puzzle into a playful but politically charged game, while with My Spy Desk, the exhibition's viewers become unintentional protagonists. Ultimately, Once upon a time a clock-watcher during overtime hoursinvites the viewer to bear witness to and participate in an exercise of irony, nuance and layered interpretation.

Born in Diyarbakir, Turkey in 1981, Öğüt currently resides in Amsterdam. Winner of the Volkskrant Art Prize 2011, Öğüt's recent solo exhibitions include Stones to Throw, Kunsthalle Lissabon, Lisbon; Underestimated Zones, Laumeier Sculpture Park, St. Louis; Ricochet # 4, Museum Villa Stuck, Munich; Speculative Social Fantasies, Artspace Visual Arts Centre in Sydney; Things we count, Künstlerhaus Bremen; Mutual Issues, Inventive Acts, Kunsthalle Basel; Across the Slope, Centre d'Art Santa Monica, Barcelona. Selected group exhibitions include Performa 09, New York; 5th Berlin Biennial for Contemporary Art; 9th International Istanbul Biennial. In 2009 he co-represented Turkey at the 53rd Venice Biennale together with Banu Cennetoğlu.

The exhibition will officially open Saturday 30th April from 4:00 to 8:00 pm.

Fondazione Giuliani per l'arte contemporanea
via Gustavo Bianchi, 1 – 00153 Rome Italy
Tuesday through Saturday from 3:00pm to 7:30pm, and by appointment
www.fondazionegiuliani.org - info@fondazionegiuliani.org - +39 06.57301091
Press contact: Elena Bari | NewRelease – press@newrelease.it - 02.47956722 – 3289781241


With support from the Royal Netherlands Embassy in Rome

http://www.fondazionegiuliani.org/