Fikret Atay

BüroFriedrich presents the first solo exhibition of the young artist Fikret Atay. The location of the artist's hometown, Batman, serves as the primary basis of his recent video works. In this Kurdish area near the Turkey-Iraq border, where poverty, military intervention and political oppression are part of everyday life, it is next to impossible to produce art. Yet Atay has deliberately chosen to remain there, to live and work in this city, and finds the inspiration for his short films in these very circumstances.

The artist selects a specific aspect of local culture and underlines universal components. In Rebels of the Dance (2002), we see a trashy modern video clip but with a 'traditional' content. Atay filmed two teenage boys near an ATM (cash machine) who sing an undecipherable text that is soon accompanied by a dance. The shift between tradition and modernity, in this case local and global culture codes, serves as the ultimate symbol of our new world.

The video Bang Bang! (2003) shows four boys 'playing' war, between two immobile trains. Atay follows the two teams with his shaky, war-coverage filming style, while they target each other with toy pistols like players in an organic video game. The game ends with the dramatic "death" of one group.

In his video Fast and Best (2002) Atay presents a group of young people, practicing a traditional folkloric dance. The artist filmed the dancers from the waist down, so that it is almost impossible to figure out which dancer is a woman and which is a man. What stands out much more is the equality, the similar trousers, the shoes and the synchronised steps.

Fikret Atay was born in Batman, Turkey in 1976. He studied Fine Arts at the University of Dicle. Among his recent exhibitions, he participated in Poetic Justice, the 8th International Biennale, Istanbul; U-Topos, the 2nd Tirana Biennale (Albania); In den Schluchten des Balkans, Kunsthalle Friedericianum, Kassel and Undesire, Apexart Curatorial Program, NY.

"I live in a town where it is practically impossible to produce art. I get more pleasure from producing art in the context of the impossible than I would in the metropolitan context. For me, this is perhaps the starting point of the most wonderful and powerful work.

To penetrate daily life, to find the depth of time in the moment, to reflect this in the town in which one lives and to struggle for understanding? these are the difficulties faced in making art in this town.

Am I able to decode the passwords? Can the codes change? Can a balance be achieved in the chaos of communication? These are the questions that seek to break out.

One only lives while working, as if life was concentrated in a film. When one's work travels to the 'centre', it is as this film is being screened. When the film is over, existence ends. Yet here life goes on. And I live here."

Fikret Atay, Batman,Turkey Pressetext

Fikret Atay