press release only in german

Candeğer Furtun September 16, 2021–April 17, 2022

Arter has embarked on the new season with the retrospective exhibition of Candeğer Furtun.

From the 1960s onwards, Candeğer Furtun (born 1936) has produced ceramic works concerned with existence and informed by problematics relating to philosophy, history, society and politics, featuring a wholly original approach in terms of both form and material. This first retrospective exhibition of the artist brings together more than a hundred works reflecting her rich world of forms and textures, along with archival materials that closely document her research and production processes. Embodying Furtun’s innovative approach to ceramics, the exhibited works manifest her contributions to the artistic turning point that has revolutionised the traditional conception of ceramics during the 1960s. Fuelled by the emancipative legacy of artistic movements such as Bauhaus, Constructivism, Abstract Expressionism and Zen philosophy, Furtun engages with raw materials by involving natural processes in her work and liberating the soil.

Curated by Selen Ansen, the exhibition is conceived around the notion of the “shell” that the artist often references both in relation to ceramics and to her own practice. The notion of the “shell” functions as a threshold between two main themes that hold both formal and conceptual importance in Furtun’s oeuvre: the human body and nature. It underscores the relations between these themes, and the possibilities of transitioning between them, enabled by the artist who proclaimed that she “sees human figures in each shell, seed and rock, even when observing nature”. The concept of the “shell” also points to the dynamic interactions between interiority/exteriority, emptiness/fullness, abstraction/figuration, part/whole and singularity/plurality that are embodied in the forms the artist creates.