Portfolio Review: Vahap Avsar

Turkey-born artist Vahap Avsar is showing his exhibit, “NONEISAFE,” now at the Charles Bank gallery in New York.  The exhibit is Avsar’s first in the United States, and features recent works that deal with often-accepted ideas of institution, authority and oppression. The title, which stands for “No One Is Safe,” takes these very real ideas from the street and places them in a gallery setting, causing the viewer to see them in a new light.

You can check out Avsar’s current exhibit at 196 Bowery through June 19th. You should definitely stop by the show, but before you do, click on for a preview of his works on display and an interview with Avsar where he breaks down his process, inspiration and key elements of his most recent works.

Wings of Terror

Hanging police lights


“When I saw this storefront space in the gallery in Istanbul, I said I wanted to do something that spills into the street. It’s a very busy street and there’s a lot of traffic. And I feel like the sirens on police cars are so blinding and so strong, so it’s almost as if they’re terrorizing the streets. But that’s how they tell us they are in charge and they are powerful. They basically control the streets.



The problem was these lights are so expensive. They are very, very high tech and very powerful. At night, when people stop and look at it, in a sense, you can’t ignore the art shown inside the gallery like a quiet painting or a sculpture. This is a very aggressive sculpture. And I think they are beautiful…they are like wings. So when they are lined up ten in a row, they look like a bunch of wings flying down, as if landing."

Ipdal

Series of “Cancelled” Postcards



"I went back to Istanbul for the first time in15 years, and I went back to the usual area where they did a lot of post card printings and course it wasn't there. I was intrigued by the fact that they disappeared, so I started researching. I wanted to discover something that was lost. After a few weeks, I found the guy who owned the shop, and I realized they were about to be destroyed.



But the archivist, the old man who was in charge of the archive didn't get rid of the films, so I basically ended up acquiring the whole archive. I wanted to know why some of them said "cancelled." I found out that when the military came to power in 1980, they went around and censored all the books and publications they didn't like. They just loaded the truck with a bunch of these printed post cards and took them and destroyed them. So now I have about 25,000 of these post cards in my studio in Instanbul. If I hadn’t gone and got them, they would have been completely gone."

NONEISAFE

Exploded Police Car



"I had the offer to do a show in New York, which is really weird because I've been in New York for 16 years, but I never had a full show. So when I had the opportunity, I said ‘I want to make that specific piece.’



I was interested in this concept of ‘nobody's safe’ even in New York City, which is supposedly a very safe place. It's still very precarious times, and everything is kind of guerilla style, so I put the two things together: the concept of no one is safe, and then the concept of this strong, well-run institution, the NYPD. There's this tension between what's happening and what could happen. And I wanted to show something that you'd never see: an exploded police car.



In contemporary art, it's not just the experience anymore. You have to be able to evoke a different sense. So that's what art is about. You have to give a new experience to that person. I'm quite pleased it worked out."

In God We Trust

Bronze Sculpture



“I always wanted to something with this ever since I first saw the dollar bill. I guess it was when I was a teenager and was learning English, and I saw the dollar bill for the first time, I was fascinated by the fact that money and religion were mixed on the dollar. It’s basically about my fascination with this contrast between the American dollar and this symbol of currency, and religion. I wanted to make it monumental, and gold, but I deliberately used the same typeface to make people think about those words in a different way.



Most people recognize it immediately. But it’s very interesting when some people say ‘Oh I know this? Where have I seen this?” and it doesn’t always register at first."

Tekmil

Video Projection



"This is a video projection I did early last year. I was blacklisted in Istanbul; I couldn't step foot in the country because I refused to do the military service. I thought I was going to die from being homesick, so eventually, I was like ok, I'm going to do it. Even though I am anti-military, anti-using weapons, and anti all this brainwashing, I did it.



And I was fascinated by this guy who was my sergeant; he was 23 and he trained us, and he is the guy in the video. So, after I finished, I went back 6 months later, and I asked the sergeant to do a little film with me. I asked him all the things that he asked of us: to recite the things we had to say every day, every morning. So I basically told him that we were going switch places. I was going be the commander and he was going to the soldier, and I was basically going to bust his ass. So, in that video, that's what I did. It was a change of authority. I am asking the questions and we traded places."