Wild West
14 February - 9 March 2013 / Artnext İstanbul
The name of the exhibition "Wild West" is derived from the film genre Western. Western cinema narrates the story of communities who settled and migrated to America after its discovery, progressing from east to west in search of an unattained frontier, intertwining these stories with the personal tales of its characters. The concept of the unattained frontier was first used as a geographic term in 15th-century France to describe the boundary lines between countries. In the 17th century, migrations from Europe to America offered Europeans new and vast lands. According to Frederick Jackson Turner's theory, this gave individuals a belief and hope that they would have unlimited opportunities. However, this promised hope also brought consequences such as excessive optimism, a future-oriented lifestyle, and the unnecessary consumption of natural resources. According to Roosevelt, this search for a frontier shaped the American identity. For Turner, the American identity was forced to exist between civilization and savagery in this way. Even after all geographical frontiers were exhausted and the United States was established, the search for geographical frontiers continued, and Kennedy even declared that the new frontier was space. Milton Stanley Livingston, however, argued that the quest for a geographical frontier paled in comparison to the frontier of the human mind, and that the true frontiers to be discovered and surpassed were there. “Wild West” is a short story of this personal quest for frontiers. In the works featured in the exhibition, the artist depicts the narratives surrounding this quest for frontiers, as seen in Western cinema, expressing emotions, thoughts, and experiences. Unlike cinema, this is done through static frames on canvas surfaces. When viewed individually, this quest for frontier begins from the moment we are born, both as geographical/physical boundaries and as limits within our minds and perceptions. Just as Roosevelt's idea of frontier-seeking shaped the American identity, through the discovery of these boundaries, a person completes and forms their own identity, or attempts to do so. In this case, all external factors that one encounters and is forced to respond to may leave them in a space between civilization and savagery.

















