Başak Kaptan, Elif Öner, Evren Erlevent, Evrim Kavcar, Kıymet Daştan, Sevgi Aka
Exhibition April 8 - June 4, 2022 - Opening April 7, Thursday, 18:00 Barın Han
In a 1977 TV documentary on Islamic calligraphic art, Emin Barın talks about a particular form of traditional calligraphy that influenced and inspired him called divânî script, noting that he was attracted to the playfulness and dynamism of this script style. While showing his students some historical examples, he says, “... in those times, unfortunately, the calligraphers could not use this script in other compositions, as they were under oath not to use it anywhere else. Since I hadn’t taken such an oath, I was free to use this style as I pleased.” With this humorous statement, Emin Barın articulates his flexible bond to tradition. “I haven’t taken an oath” is the comforting expression of a viewpoint that acknowledges tradition, without confining it to the past or a specific pattern, that makes room for experimentation, play, and life. It is a declaration of self-determination.
Barın Han, which has kept the memory of Emin Barın alive while renewing itself as an alternative project space in the field of culture and arts, is hosting the exhibition I haven’t taken an oath between April 8 - June 4, 2022. The exhibition is based on the lines that five artists, who instinctively and persistently hold on to the materials that attract them, try to draw between the memory of the space and their own subjectivity. Artists Başak Kaptan, Elif Öner, Evren Erlevent, Evrim Kavcar, Kıymet Daştan, and Sevgi Aka have been discussing the intellectual and intuitive kinship of their work processes’ for over a year. The artist’s intermittent yet long-term meetings and exchanges, made possible through the venue’s flexibility, included frequent discussions surrounding aspects of Emin Barın’s life and practice that resonated with their present experience. Molds, what remains, not fitting the mold, overflowing, wear of the mold, breaking the mold, and molding defects are among the most apparent intellectual lines of I haven’t taken an oath. The exhibition, which will evolve over its duration, presents the artists’ various experimentations and productions that could be described as being “a little from the guts, and a little from the sides.”
In addition to artworks that have been produced in Barın Han, I haven’t taken an oath to include the output of some valuable contributions* and artworks that have been dusted off, re-evaluated, and revived. While working in this unique space, where the driving force remains to be Emin Barın as an artist/craftsman/teacher/father, one of the most tempting issues that presented itself was the possibility of keeping his memory alive instead of imprisoning it in the past. Through the artworks in "I Haven’t Taken an Oath", the past suddenly finds new life; the closer we get, the further it fades away. It may also skip about or be gently yet meticulously erased… With all of its continuity or discontinuity, the past appears in various forms such as a striped sheet, a looping word, a tumbling dot made of earth, a family heirloom dinnerware set, or a compass box. Through imagination, memory is kept alive.
* With our thanks to Emin Barın’s former student, academician, and calligrapher Savaş Çevik; Turan Coşkun, who has been working in the Barın bookbinding house since 1984; Emir Barın and the Barın family for their support and hospitality.