Dor Guez: The Sick Man of Europe: The Architect

Curator: Yael Messer 

DEPO Istanbul is hosting Dor Guez’s first solo exhibition in Turkey titled The Sick Man of Europe: The Architect as a neighbouring event of the 15th Istanbul Biennial. The Sick Man of Europe refers to a term from the end of the 19th century to describe the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. Guez uses this metaphor to examine the culture and history of several states in the Middle East by appropriating and reconstructing “the sick man” as a historic figure. Each section of this ongoing project tells the story of an individual—a painter, an architect, a composer respectively—who embody a subject fallen victim to military conditions.

The Sick Man of Europe: The Architect focuses on Kemal P., an architecture student who was recruited to the Turkish army in the late 1930s. A two-channel video installation centers on 13 of Kemal’s photographs from 1938 that document the Turkish Republic’s Victory Day Parade in Ankara in August of the same year, and, a few months later, the funeral of the Republic’s leader, Kemal Atatürk. By focusing on buildings, monuments, and squares, one can track the architectural changes that took place in Turkey from its transformation from Ottoman Empire to the Turkish Republic.

The exhibition also includes hundred of photographs of uniformed men (i.e. soldiers, policemen, scouts) in military parades, army camps, field training, studio poses, and group, couple, and individual portraits, which were collected through the years by Kemal P.

Previous parts of The Sick Man of Europe were shown at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London (ICA), in collaboration with the Mosaic Rooms, Centre for Contemporary Arab Culture & Art, London; and Villa Stuck Museum, Munich (2015); as well as at the Center for Contemporary Art, Tel Aviv (CCA); the Museum of Contemporary Art, Detroit (MOCAD); Museum Untref, Buenos Aires (2016); and The Museum For Islamic Art, Jerusalem (2017).

Dor Guez was born to a Palestinian and Jewish-Tunisian family in Jerusalem. His work has been displayed in over 30 solo exhibitions worldwide, including the Museum for Islamic Art in Jerusalem; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Detroit; the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London; the Center for Contemporary Art, Tel Aviv; the Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University, Massachusetts; Artpace, San Antonio; the Mosaic Rooms, Centre for Contemporary Arab Culture & Art, London; and the KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin. He has participated in numerous important group exhibitions, including shows at the Buenos Aires Museum of Modern Art; Weatherspoon Art Museum, Greensboro, North Carolina; the 17th, 18th, and 19th International Contemporary Art Festival Videobrasil, São Paulo; the 8th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art; Cleveland Institute of Art; Triennale Museum, Milan; Centre of Contemporary Art, Torun; Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography; Maxxi Museum, Rome; Palais de Tokyo, Paris; and the 12th Istanbul Biennial.
 

Media contact: DEPO program coordinator Asena Günal, asenagunal [​at​] depoistanbul.net