Don’t Forget to Remember
Volkan Aslan
2 May–11 August 2013
ARTER – space for art
Istiklal Caddesi, 211
Beyoglu, Istanbul, Turkey
Hours: Tuesday–Thursday 11–19h
Friday–Sunday 12–20h
Admission free
ARTER will be hosting Volkan Aslan‘s exhibition, titled Don’t Forget to Remember, from 2 May to 11 August 2013. Curated by Emre Baykal, this solo exhibition is conceived as a large installation consisting of seven new pieces alluding to personal and social reflexes and sentiments about the days of the week.
Don’t Forget to Remember reflects on the concept of time. Volkan Aslan infuses the days of the week with his personal rhythm and sense of time by inserting several other everyday patterns into the template known as ‘the week.’ Although the titles of the works have been borrowed from a fixed and repetitive pattern of time that progresses in a straight line, Aslan is interested in a subjective perception of time, within which this linear flow is interrupted through the act of ‘remembering’ and ‘forgetting.’ Here, the past and the future are transposed and brought into the present moment. As our weekly calendars thrust us collectively forward, the ‘days’ in Don’t Forget To Remember draw Aslan back towards the past, and towards the impressions that occupy his personal memory.
The works Volkan Aslan has produced for Don’t Forget To Remember subject his main strategy of instrumentalising templates and readymade objects—a method he frequently employs—to experimentation on a new template. As he uses the days of the week as the backbone of the exhibition, Aslan connects each day to his own personal experiences and perceptions by associating them with various readymade objects and patterns.
Designed by Esen Karol and edited by İlkay Baliç, the book of the exhibition brings together the photographs which Volkan Aslan took almost every day as a diary starting on the New Year’s Day 2013 and ending on 3 April—his birthday—alongside quotes from his notebooks and from a conversation on ‘the days of the week’ made during the production process of the book.
Volkan Aslan (b. 1982, Ankara) studied Painting at Mersin University Faculty of Fine Arts. His solo exhibitions include Volkan (Macka Art Gallery, Istanbul, 2011), Unstable Repetition (Pi Artworks, Istanbul, 2011), Four (Pi Artworks, Istanbul, 2009), Concern (Pi Artworks, Istanbul, 2008), and Volkan Aslan in Istanbul (Under Construction, Istanbul, 2007). His works were exhibited in various group exhibitions including Art Barter Istanbul (5533, Istanbul, 2013), Pi @ Q (Q Contemporary, Beirut, Lebanon, 2012), Second Exhibition (Arter, 2010), When Ideas Become Crime (Depo, Istanbul, 2010), Too Good to be True (Delfina Foundation, London, 2009), Once Upon a Time (Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin, 2009), and Save As (Triennial Bovisa Museum, Milan, 2008) among others. Aslan is also co-founder of 5533, a non-profit independent art space in Unkapanı, Istanbul.
Don’t Forget to Remember will remain open until 11 August 2013.
The project was funded by ARTER, in line with the institution’s mission to encourage and support artistic production.
Media Contact
For additional information, images or to request an interview, please contact:
Idil Kartal
idil.kartal [at] gmail.com
T +90 212 243 37 67
M +90 542 216 60 09