Arts and Culture columnist for CNN Türk, Duygu Merzifonluoğlu, reviewed the past edition of Virtual Contemporary Istanbul 2020, the online art fair that took place from 19 December through 6 January in lieu of the physical event.
After a guided tour with Art Historian, Professor and Curator, Dr. Marcus Graf, Ms Merzifonluoğlu shared some of her impressions on the fair, highlighting our represented artist Carlos Gallardo and his series Pixel Terror (1982), presented for the very first time in Turkey by Isabel Croxatto Galería.
Find an excerpt translated below, and the full article in Turkish here.
I thought that the test of a person who is trying to cope with a world that has come to an end, described in apocalyptic scenarios with nature, is not present only in movies. I felt that our multi-disciplinary structure in the new world order, our coexistence with many different cultures and people in the same environment at the same time, and our inability to fit into a single mold anymore, is transforming us into brand new hybrid models. While the artists bring out the testimonies of this period in their own dialects one by one, we pass through this process by cutting our own excesses and trying to complete the deficiencies. These were the feelings I had from some of the works exhibited in this fair...
On the other hand, I do not want to pass without mentioning a piece that Dr. Graf narrated in this online tour. These photographs by Carlos Gallardo at Isabel Croxatto Galería, in which the artist puts himself in the foreground, obviously left a strange mark on me. Because in these photos, Gallardo actually took a selfie with himself along famous paintings, his face was in the front of the photo, but he looked blurred. The famous paintings standing behind him were extremely clear.
According to Graf, through this work, Gallardo says to us: "How can I stand out when I have these famous paintings behind me, these important works, how can I be important?" However, isn't the selfie a selfish point of view, placing themselves clearly in the foreground, considering everything other than itself small and blurred? Nevertheless, here Gallardo shows us a different perspective with his work. He tells us differently about his respect for the past, his feeling small in the face of the grandeur of a work he knows very well, and how this feeling can affect his present. On the other hand, this does not change the fact that Gallardo has positioned himself in front of those magnificent paintings, even if his faces is blurred. Perhaps what Gallardo wants is to get lost in this paradox and enter the work even more...
