The Sound, in the site-specific installation of Cevdet Erek, takes form and matter in the surrounding space. The artist, by the use of music, imagines and several other media, arranges and orchestrates spaces sizing them and their time perception. He articulates thus a new social construction, in order to measure and understand the investigated places.
On Monday, February 27, the Istambul Foundation for culture and art (IKSV) presented a new framework project of the artist Cevdet Erek, for the Turkey Pavilion at 57th Venice Biennale.
The title of this new site-specific piece is ÇIN, The work explores the nature of borders, combining space and sound. This sound installation will be developed during the venue. An architecture of different sounds, which will bring the exhibition beyond its physical limits, establishing a dynamic inside-out movement and a new perception of the space-border.
This installation, with an immediate level of synesthetic perception, becomes a metaphor of the socio-political issues of our time.
The artist, during the press conference, gave different examples of the studies conducted for the setting of the work, and illustrated some of the methods and concepts that have been experimented since the end of the 2000’s. Work series such as Room of Rhythms, Rulers and Rhythms Studies and Sound Ornamentations have been explained and shown during the conference by Cevdet Erek through various media: sounds, images and drawings.
The work of the artist and musician Cevdet Erek explores thoughts of time, rhythm and space through the use of sound and performance. The conceptual focus is the axis between the perception of the space, the condition of hearing and listening as well as the beating out of the rhythm within the space.
Erek’s works are often a site-specific installations, interpreting the multitude of systems and structures that human society has developed to measure and organise their day-to-day life.
He transforms and uses the music and its tools to develop new kind of sonorities becoming sculptural aesthetics. The importance of music and sound in the Erek’s research is visible in the film Abulka (Frenzy) by Emin Alper, where Erek featured as music and sound director.
The dialog, emerging from the investigated places and the sound inhabiting the architectural features of them, is the most relevant element of his practice. The architecture is reshaped by the music and becoming a new allegorical space.
The choice of various media and formats (often effimeral) was made through the study of context in order to make the idea visible or just to evoke it. Erek’s sound explores “natural” and “human-made” spaces and our way to measure, organize and materialize them. Cevdet Erik makes an analysis of the use and reuse of everyday forms and objects.
Erek combines rational component which instinctive impulse, levelling the gap between apparent opposite spheres.
His installations and performances were shown in dOCUMENTA (13) (2012), Istanbul Biennial (2003, 2013 and 2015), Sydney Biennial (2016), Sharjah Biennial (2013), Stedelijk Museum (2014), MAXXI (2014 and 2015), Istanbul Modern (2014, 2015 and 2016), Arter (2011), SALT (2012 and 2015) among others. Major solo exhibitions of his work were organised by Spike Island in Bristol (2014) and Kunsthalle Basel (2012). His published books are SSS – Shore Scene Soundtrack (2008, BAS), Room of Rhythms 1 (2012, Walther König) and Less Empty Maybe (2015, Revolver/Artist). His SSS – Shore Scene Soundtrack was the recipient of Nam June Paik Award given by Kunststiftung NRW (2012).
Room of Rhythms – Long Distance Relationship, 2016. Installation view at 20th Biennale of Sydney. Photo Credits Ben Symons.
A Room of Rhythms – Otopark, 2015. Installation view at Istanbul Biennial. Photo Credits Sahir Ugur Eren.
Sonic Architectural Ornamentation, Jameel Prize 4. Video frame.
Room of Rhythms, 2012. Installation view at dOCUMENTA (13), Kassel. Photo Credits Rosa Maria Rühling.
A Room of Rhythms – Curva, 2014. Installation view at Open Museum City, MAXXI Rome. Photo Credits Musacchio Ianniello.