March 2024

Location

YARAT CENTRE

Bayil District (National Flag Square) Baku, Azerbaijan, AZ1003

view map

OPENING HOURS
Tuesday – Sunday:
12 am > 8 pm

CONTACT

+99412 505 1414

E-MAIL

info@yarat.az

View map

YARAT CENTRE: AHMET ÖĞÜT NO POEM LOVES ITS POET

26 May - 28 Oct 20

YARAT Contemporary Art Space is pleased to present a solo exhibition from the Amsterdam-based Kurdish artist Ahmet Öğüt. The show features two new, site-responsive commissions spanning across video and sculpture, entitled Hiçbir şiir, şairini sevmez (No poem loves its poet) and Living Beings Squatting Institutions. Referring to the physical and societal structures imposed by mankind throughout history – dividing both living beings and cultures – Öğüt’s works allude to how these structures are ultimately permeable states.


The video installation Hiçbir şiir, şairini sevmez (No poem loves its poet) takes its title from a piece of Turkic graffiti the artist encountered during a visit to Sovetsky – a historic neighborhood in Baku now under demolition. Presented on a large modular LED wall, with original music composed by Sub-Botnick (Ahmet Öğüt and Maru Mushtrieva), the video features overhead footage spanning across Baku’s central districts. Two lost flight attendants can be seen within the rubble holding a road sign for Tolstoy Street, which formerly ran through the Sovetsky neighborhood. Observing the cultural evolution and radical urbanization of Azerbaijan - which has shared Soviet, Turkic and Azerbaijani histories – Öğüt gestures towards the succession of governing bodies who have attempted to remove traces of their predecessors via urban gentrification, social norms and economic powers.

Interweaving throughout the exhibition space, an architectural installation mimics Baku’s city walls, originally erected to hide ‘undesirable’ areas; those which are occupied or are remains of Soviet culture. Creating a path for viewers which both blocks and reveals the video and sculptural works, Öğüt’s installation acts as a metaphor for those who have lived and are still living in Baku today.

Also featured in the exhibition, Living Beings Squatting Institutions is comprised of five sculptures which merge animals with the global cultural institutions they inhabit, including: the Peregrine falcons of the Tate Modern; the Weimaraner dog of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston; bats of the National Museum of Cambodia; polar bears around Artica Svalbard; and a cat of YARAT Contemporary Art Centre. Whilst Öğüt highlights how mankind has built spaces to purposefully exclude others, the artist also nods to how living beings and cultures – in their many different forms – will find ways to coexist.


This exhibition is co-curated by Mari Spirito, Protocinema, and Suad Garayeva-Maleki.


This exhibition is also supported by Goethe-Zentrum Baku


Special thanks to Sadagat Isayeva, Yelta Köm, Maru Mushtrieva, Aşan Akın, Nathan Gray, Sanan Baghirov, Dağhan Yürürler and Zeynep Fırat.


Ahmet Öğüt (b. 1981, Silvan, Diyarbakir) lives and works in Amsterdam and Berlin. Following Diyarbakir Fine Art high school, he completed his BA from the Fine Arts Faculty at Hacettepe University, Ankara, MA from Art and Design Faculty at Yıldız Teknik University, Istanbul. He works across different media and has exhibited widely, more recently with solo presentations at La Galerie de l’Université du Québec en Outaouais (2019), Kunstverein Dresden (2018), Kunsthal Charlottenborg (2017), ALT Bomonti (2016), Chisenhale Gallery (2015); Berkeley Art Museum (2010); and Kunsthalle Basel (2008). He has also participated in numerous group exhibitions, including; YOU ARE, Gothenburg Museum of Art, Gothenburg (2019) Echigo Tsumari Art Triennale (2018); the British Art Show 8 (2015-2017); the 13th Biennale de Lyon (2015); Performa 13, the Fifth Biennial of Visual Art Performance, New York (2013); the 7th Liverpool Biennial (2012); the 12th Istanbul Biennial (2011); the New Museum Triennial, New York (2009); and the 5th Berlin Biennial for Contemporary Art (2008). Öğüt was awarded the Visible Award for the Silent University (2013); the special prize of the Future Generation Art Prize, Pinchuk Art Centre, Ukraine (2012); the De Volkskrant Beeldende Kunst Prijs 2011, Netherlands; and the Kunstpreis Europas Zukunft, Museum of Contemporary Art, Germany (2010). He co-represented Turkey at the 53rd Venice Biennale (2009). 


Notes to editors:

Exhibition: Ahmet Öğüt, No poem loves its poet

Location: YARAT Centre (National Flag Square)

Dates: 26 May – 28 October 2020

Exhibition opens: Tuesday through Friday, from 12:00 – 18:00

Admission is free


For media and image inquiries please contact: 

Milly Carter Hepplewhite and Yaz Ozkan at Pelham Communications

Telephone: +44 2089693959

Email: milly@pelhamcommunications.com and yaz@pelhamcommunications.com 

Loading