SURET-SİZ

16) I do not share the view
that Balkan Naci is a narcissist,
a view first uttered by Sezer
Tansuğ. I stress the point
because twenty years later it
has been renewed by Ayşegül
Sönmez. As is well known,
the use of the body in art
is as old as art history itself.
And in contemporary art,
contemporary artists frequently
use their own bodies. Author of
‘Nessun tempo, nessun corpo…’
with the subtitle ‘Arte, Azioni,
Reazioni e Conversazioni’
Francesca Alfano Miglietti
(FAM)/ publisher Skira/
A reference book on the
subject, including Şükran
Moral, explores the issue with
countless examples.
cm, transfer print and collage on canvas, 1944). However,
Bedri Baykam’s concept of being at the center of his art is not
the same as that of Balkan Naci. Baykam exhibits his own
problems through an existentialist concept, while Balkan Naci
is searching for a shared story that will offer up all pain after
testing it in his own flesh. His experiences are for the common
good of mankind. The problems of being and nothingness
are more mystical, and signify the transitory. The nakedness
in the telling of his own story is both his own and the shared
nakedness of humanity. 16
Kazimir Malevich’s black square, on the other hand, is like
the symbol of silent nothingness. It is the desire of an artist
who wished to escape the heavy burden of tradition at the turn
of the century to start art history from scratch, from nothing.
An American grant in 1990 led the way in Balkan Naci to a
fundamental change not only of style but at the same time
of materials and methods. During this period (1990-92) he
produced straitjackets using, not specially created objects
but, with extreme irony, the toilet seats that alluded to an
anarchistic and dissenting period in art history. These jackets
were a reference both to art tradition (readymade) and to
traditional arts. The idea that ‘a work of art can be done also
by, not the artist, but someone else’ was gleaned from art
history to be combined, again ironically, with traditional arts. In
these assemblies reside 80 years of experience with collage
on the part of art history, and at least 20 on the part of Balkan
Naci. As if wishing to vindicate both his irony, that constant
amid change, and the art historians who proclaimed their
self-admiration, he used his own visage to counter himself
and placed himself—again himself—at the center of his art
struggle. He returned to jackets, in 2001 again using mixed
materials and media on felt, and in 2007 using different media.
His 1990 discovery ‘straitjackets’ by 2001 had become ‘cure
jackets.’ In these jackets is presented a blend of traditional
arts and folk art traditions (the use of felt). The Caravaccio
or art tradition references in his déjà vu cycle of 2000 find
their way in 2001, again with irony, into the cure jackets
(looking down..). In the pitch jackets of 2007, on the other
hand, he uses his self portraits, again with a reference to the
Caravaccio art tradition but this time deformed, to go back 10
years in his own artistic memory and recall the straitjackets.
| 21