Franz Ackermann
Come On!
September 14–October 15, 2017
Opening: September 14, 6pm
Dirimart Dolapdere
Irmak Street. 1-9
34440 İstanbul
Turkey
T +90 212 232 66 66
Dirimart is pleased to announce Franz Ackermann’s solo exhibition at the gallery, Come On! Ackermann, known for his passionate paintings and installations dealing with themes of travel, tourism, globalization, and urban life, is bringing together landscapes from cities that he spent extensive periods of time during the last three years at Dirimart Dolapdere, The artist transforms these cities, ranging from Miami to Istanbul to Mumbai, by analyzing the dramatic changes they undergo and translating his mental experiences of them into small-scale watercolors, large-scale oil paintings, and vast murals By thus becoming part of urban textures, he opens up areas to construct new spaces for himself. Ackermann describes this new space that is woven by images void of people as public space, inviting viewers in to complement the cities he painted to become a fundamental element of the exhibition and to reiterate the strong connection between the gallery space and the outside.
Franz Ackermann began his first long-term series, “Mental Maps” in 1991 during a trip to Hong Kong. The watercolors in the exhibition are a part of Ackermann’s first long term and ongoing series, “Mental Maps” which emerged. The artist combined the sensibility of traditional street maps to directly reflect reality with his interpretation of the region, seemingly documenting his perceptions of important cities in Asia, South America, and Australia. Later on, Ackermann designed large-scale, dynamic installations including paintings, drawings, photographs, wall drawings, sculptures, and bulletin boards, constructed through bringing together separate, individual elements. With his works, he aims to reveal the two facades of tourism; on the one hand is the appeal of the rapid, international travel consumption culture, while on the other hand is the cultural degradation, architectural marks left behind. His installations often appear to resemble the strange advertisements designed for the cultural tourism industry. While the spaces that he describes do not appear unique, they are also extremely familiar—non-existent spaces in which the traveling tourist’s desire replaces the local culture.
Franz Ackermann invites the viewer calling out Come On! to these impressionistic spaces he assembles at the gallery while he makes his face the speed, destruction and consumption specific to our live. The exhibition will be on view until October 15.
Franz Ackermann was born in 1963 in Neumarkt St Veit, Germany, and lives and works in Berlin, Germany. He has exhibited extensively internationally, including solo exhibitions at Kunsthalle Karlsruhe, Karlsruhe (2014); Berlinische Galerie, Berlin (2013); Faena Arts Center, Buenos Aires (2012); Kunstmuseum Bonn, Bonn (2009); Kunstmuseum St Gallen (2008); Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin (2005); Kunsthalle Basel (2002); Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (2002); Castello di Rivoli, Turin (2000); and Portikus, Frankfurt am Main (1997). Important group exhibitions include Altermodern: Tate Triennial (2009); Tokyo-Berlin / Berlin-Tokyo, Mori Art Museum and Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin (2006); Biennale d’art contemporain de Lyon; Remote Viewing (Invented Worlds in Recent Painting and Drawing), Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; and Drawing from the Modern, 1975–2005, The Museum of Modern Art, New York (2005).
For detailed information and other inquiries, please contact the gallery at info [at] dirimart.com or T +90 212 232 66 66.
