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| Borga Kantürk |
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Born in 1978 in Izmir, Turkey, Borga Kantürk is an artist and curator.
Kantürk uses painting and drawing as his main artistic media, yet it is often difficult to call the result of his production processes ‘paintings’. He makes hand made copies of official documents, which dictate a public identity on to the individual, like diplomas, student identity cards, honors certificates, examination passes, and identity cards. These experiments with ‘artificiality’ and ‘constructedness’ become an act of protest through recreating the original images while distorting and reframing them. A series of these remade objects, which were brought together in an installation titled “Borga Kantürk/Retrospective” shown in the exhibition I Am Too Sad to Kill You! at Proje4L in 2003 served as a starting point for other works. There are works which designate an intimate space, introverted and secluded: play-dough sculptures, found toys, slightly melancholic mortal objects, tiny fragile statuettes that risk being disfigured with a touch” and everyday objects like a pack of cream cheese, a playing piece from a game, a leaf from a memo pad and a pencil. Little scenes made out of play-dough bring together elements borrowed from TV and computer games, such as a scene depicting a 10cm soccer player figure watching a big text that is a slogan from Anfield Road. In Kantürk’s words many of his works are “a pocket size version of the dream of large scale production.”
Kantürk has participated in many international and national exhibitions including in 2006 Check-in-Europe, EPO, Munich, Germany; Les Dessous Chic, Clermont-Ferrand, France; Revenge of Zidane, MASA, Istanbul; in 2004 Lock your mind, Zihnini Kilitl, Berlin, Germany. In 2005 he completed a three-month artist residency supported by Platform Garanti Contemporary Art Centre and participated in the exhibition Borga Kantürk & Ahmet Öğüt. In the same year he participated in a residency with HIAP in Helsinki, Finland and after this programme he curated several international exhibitions and events with the support of FRAME (FIN), Av-Arkki (FIN), Atelier Frankfurt (GER), K2 Art Centre (TR). He is the founder and director of KUTU Portable Art Gallery (2001). He is also the co-founder of K2 Art Centre (2002) where he worked as a Project Director until 2007.
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