Through “Bygone Innocence” Göksu Kunak (b. 1985) presents a body of work that departs from the 1996 Susurluk car accident. In the crashed Mercedes weapons were found; among the victims were the former president of the Istanbul police department and a member of the Gray Wolves who was being searched by Interpol. The crash made a lasting impact on society and politics in Turkey and disclosed the existence of a network in the crime-politics-state triangle, which had been speculated about prior to the accident.
Car accident as a phenomenon
In “Bygone Innocence”, Kunak contemplates the politics of concealing and erasing and focuses on the car crash as a phenomenon. It is understood as a moment when technology has shown its worst effects and the truth behind our constructed reality comes to the fore. The notion of a crash is further seen as a fetish, a moment frozen in time in which various relationships are crystalized – all systems down between drama and soap opera.
Multi-media show
The exhibition in Krems includes a sculpture, an installation, paintings, prints and a performance with a pole dancer and a climbing Person. Kunak’s new print “Siyah Araba / The Black Car” is a symbolically overloaded assemblage of clichés of immigration, movement, restriction, speeding up, getting stuck, and slowing down, in which a car was one of the protagonists. “KAZA / The Accident” depicts a reworked image of the Susurluk crash. The artist’s new series of photo collages displayed on TV screens explores the usage of bureaucratic surveillance to investigate a crash or (in case of manipulative application of data) to allow concealment. The sculpture “Atypical Attraction” refers to the Anadol car—the first mass produced car in Turkey. It alludes to the moment of being frozen in time, when multiple factors have come unintendedly together and clashed. The images of the installation “DU, Maschine” demonstrate Kunak’s admiration for female bodybuilders.
Bygone Innocence was originally created for PİLEVNELİ, Istanbul. Curation: Léon Kruijswijk
In cooperation with donaufestival (Artistic Director Thomas Edlinger)