IGA ART Gallery, the culture and art center of IGA Istanbul Airport, is hosting Mehmet Kavukcu's personal exhibition titled “Nature”. prof. Curated by Gülveli Kaya, the exhibition features performance videos, photographs and objects produced by the artist in different periods and on the 6 February earthquakes that stunned our country.
IGA Istanbul Airport, Turkey's gateway to the world, continues its mission of being an art center where different cultures meet and interact, as well as being the most important global transfer center in the region. The exhibition, which consists of videos selected from performance works of artist Mehmet Kavukcu from different periods, as well as photographs and installations of objects collected from the Hatay earthquake region, focuses on the contradictory relationship between man and nature and the results of this relationship under the title of “Nature”.
The curator of the exhibition, which brings the "man of nature" and "the nature of man" face to face, Prof. Gülveli Kaya said the following about this relationship presented to art lovers at the İGA ART Gallery: “The person of nature; While he is a person who is at peace with nature, accepts its laws and lives as a part of nature, but knows how to benefit from the beauties of nature and what it gives, it is revealed that human nature does not get along well with nature.”
“Thanks World…”
In the exhibition “Nature”, artist Mehmet Kavukcu brings together the items and objects he collected from the Hatay earthquake region to show, touch and feel the whole world. IGA Istanbul Airport, which is an international venue, sees this exhibition as an opportunity to thank all the people of the world for their empathy and support for the earthquake zone.
The message to be emphasized in the exhibition, where Kavukcu's three performances in different times and places are presented together, is as follows:
“Man is without tools, without tools, and alone. It gathers, plucks and carries everything with its own power. He sometimes drags what he can get from the nature he is in to the city center and sometimes to an unknown place.”
Travels that lead to different experiences…
Stating that they are happy to host Mehmet Kavukcu's artistic productions under the roof of İGA ART, İGA Istanbul Airport CEO Kadri Samsunlu said the following about the exhibition:
“We hope that each visit will turn into a journey that leads to different experiences at our airport, which has achieved another important milestone by exceeding the threshold of 200 million passengers. While achieving this goal through IGA ART, we position IGA Istanbul Airport as Turkey's gateway to the world in culture and art. We host hundreds of thousands of passengers from different geographies of the world every day at IGA Istanbul Airport, which is a global transfer center. We find it very important to bring our guests together with such important and valuable exhibitions for the promotion of our artists, our airport and Turkey.”
A monument is being erected for the suffering of the earthquake with the nature exhibition…
Reminding that we are still trying to heal the wounds of the earthquake disasters we have experienced throughout the country, IGA ART Executive Board Chairman Prof. Hüsamettin Koçan, on the other hand, stated that the exhibition was also an opportunity to confront our very fresh memories.
Expressing that IGA ART, which aims to host passengers with different psychology and goals in a cultural and artistic environment, puts long-term projects on its agenda that will bring aesthetic richness and share Turkey's knowledge. Koçan continued his words as follows: “IGA ART Art Gallery is one of these projects and Mehmet Kavukcu's exhibition titled 'Nature' has a content that can be the agenda of international sharing. Mehmet Kavukcu, who has been producing on these themes throughout his life in a region such as Erzurum, which is extremely far from the center of art, in today's world when earthquakes, pollution directed to nature and the alienation between human and nature are at their peak; He managed to explain the relationship between nature and human with a different language and sensitivity by being alone despite the environmental admiration and prejudices. Turning the trees that cut the ice into ice sculptures in winter, traveling to nature in the snow, sleeping alone in bed, lost in the garbage heaps, bringing the dried trees to the city center with a ceremonial behavior, and bringing the destructions there to Erzincan, another earthquake zone, causing pain and suffering. We are very pleased to share the great artistic journey of master Mehmet Kavukcu, who erected a monument to neglect, in the international arena. We thank our artist for exhibiting his works in this venue and congratulate him.”
Koçan also underlined that Kavukcu, who carried the items and objects he collected from the earthquake area to the IGA ART gallery space, once again gave all art lovers the opportunity to empathize with this tragic event.