In Mehmet Ali Uysal’s oeuvre, space, and here especially the white cube of the gallery, is always a major factor, as it is an inseparable part of his sculptural installations, objects, photos and videos. Inside the white cube, the artist analyzes how the process of creating and viewing art is connected to the time and place of its production and displacement. For him, the gallery space defines the cause, material, form and content of a work.

Mehmet Ali Uysal

In the past, space often functioned for Uysal as a record that internalized the human experience. That is why in pieces like “Ten / Skin” (2004) or “Untitled” (2004), he investigated the connection between interior and exterior spaces of architecture as well as the human body. There, the artist revealed a relationship between the wall and the human skin, as he flexed and stretched the wall to show its resemblance with the skin. For Mehmet Ali Uysal, the walls of the gallery are not rigid, untouchable or unchangeable architectural limitations, but porous and liquid elements, with which he can formulate his artistic statement.

In his exhibition at Nesrin Esirtgen Collection he goes one step further by perceiving the gallery space itself as an artwork. As Uysal is aware of the contextual power and the ideological matters of the gallery space, he believes that one must interfere with its structure in order to be able to convert the ideology of the white cube. This leads automatically to a conflict with the gallery space, and this is the reason for his current pieces destroying the compulsory perception of the gallery being understood as the perfect space for the display of art.

Mehmet Ali Uysal

The three installations, which together with its space should be understood as one work, clearly follow a minimal aesthetic and are executed with the visual vocabulary of the rational and geometrical. At the same time – and here we see a difference to the formalism of minimal art – the work deals with simulation and illusionism. At first glance, the three separate objects seem like cut out pieces of the gallery walls. However, these parts were not cut out, but formed by the artist according to the missing spaces in the wall, which were also created by him. The pieces therefore were measured, designed and built by Uysal and his team. That is why the forms that the spectator sees are not ready-made but sculptural objects.

Within large holes inside of three walls, orange bricks occur and form a strong contrast to the clean white plaster of the gallery’s display area. There, the artist creates a visual clash, which at the same time refers to a socio-cultural clash between shifts as well. The work formulates an institutional critique that goes beyond the limits of our art world and refers to a larger context of socio-cultural discussions about e.g. the accessibility of our art scene. The bricks are construction material, which usually get plastered in order to hide their rawness and ugliness. In low-income-neighbourhoods, where the “gecekondu” and other forms of illegal urban development prevail, mostly, the brick wall remains like it is; it is not covered, hidden or embellished. The brick wall in Mehmet Ali Uysal’s work carries a cultural connotation and functions as a sign for a wider social contextualization.

Mehmet Ali Uysal

All is illusion in Nesrin Esirtgen Collection’s gallery space. There is no cut out piece, and no orange brick wall behind the original white wall. There is not even an original white wall that we can see, because the one we look at was installed by Uysal, and is another part of the whole work. The actual wall of the gallery is hidden behind the bricks and Uysal’s white wall. So, the exhibition consists of three pieces, which each have three massive parts (white wall, orange brick wall and sculptural object). Peeling therefore is a formal and conceptual play with various types of walls.

The wall as sculptural and theoretical matter has an important relevance in Mehmet Ali Uysal’s oeuvre. He understands the walls of the gallery as its skin, which usually is an untouchable base for art works. Uysal in contrast aims at bringing a new meaning to the nature of the gallery by deconstructing the walls and deforming its flawless surface. While interfering with the sanctity of the space, he also honours it by transforming it into a work of art. During this process, the artist reveals its hidden identity and historicity, which the gallery permanently erases for the sake of looking clean, unused and perfect. For Uysal, this act of anti-historicalness gives the white cube a sterile character, which he believes is one reason for the gap between gallery and visitor. The artist breaks through this sterility and, as he understands the gallery space as a living entity, revives it as a living entity.

Mehmet Ali Uysal

In the end, Mehmet Ali Uysal deforms, deconstructs and transforms the given space at Nesrin Esirtgen Collection in order to break its neutrality, sterility and cold aesthetic. After the artist’s spatial interventions, the gallery’s perception changes from hosting a cold emptiness to become a space with surprises. Uysal defines the gallery as an artwork, and deals with it as a certain structure rather than a sacred entity. His work is outstanding in its use of minimal language and formulation of a conceptual approach, which renews matters of minimalism and institutional critique without neglecting current socio-cultural issues.

Courtesy of Robert Seidel

Seidel is an artist, filmmaker and curator who originally began studying biology to finish with a media design diploma at the Bauhaus University Weimar. His projections, installations and experimental films have been shown in numerous international festivals
“My goal is to create something that seems believable in the way it moves, in its form and sound, without giving enough information to fully decipher it. So each viewer finds a very personal narration to these organic-abstract worlds.” Seidel said

Courtesy of Robert Seidel

Courtesy of Pae White

Too Much Night, Again is a large scale configuration of thread that is woven from wall to wall; a delicate web of illusion. From the outside, White’s thread installation looks like a massive loom of bruised colors, but as viewers weave themselves farther into the yarn, they find that the string spells out the words TIGER TIME on one wall and is inter-woven across the space of the room to the word UNMATTERING on the opposite wall. It took 48 kilometers of thread and two weeks of meticulous work to install this matrix of string.

Courtesy of Pae White

White’s creation is truly an expressive portrait of 3:00am anxieties. The dimensions which White used to create the structure give the impression of looking at the mind of an insomniac. From the outside, the viewers have no idea what is going on in the inside of the insomniacs mind, it is only made apparent that the insomniac is overwhelmed with thought by the massive amount of yarn in the air that symbolize her stream of consciousness.

Courtesy of Pae White

Then, the viewers get to move deeper into the subconscious of the yarn to see the actual coherent thoughts running through her head: TIGER TIME and UNMATTERING. At the same time, the viewers are now a part of the exhibit, as blips of thought in the insomniacs mind. This brilliant structure of symbolism and intricacy can be viewed at the South London Gallery until May 12^th, 2013 and on its official website: southlondongallery.org.

By Veronica Mattaboni

Courtesy of Pae White

Courtesy of Sun K. Kwak

Korean-born and New York City–based, Kwak was formally trained as a painter. During her course of studies in New York, she arrived at her unique technique of working freehand with masking tape, drawing directly on the surfaces of architectural spaces such as stairwells; lobbies of public buildings; small galleries; and museum façades. Her installations create spaces and experiences that fall between drawing and sculpture: walking into her creation is like walking into a sheet of black line drawing. The scale of her drawings and the visual forms, which suggest directional force or even the push-and-pull of the ocean, are meant to alter the viewer’s visceral perception of the space.

Courtesy of Sun K. Kwak

Sun K. Kwak’s installation at the Brooklyn Museum was specifically created for this gallery. Following the process that she uses for all of her site-specific installations, the artist visited the Museum and spent time examining and documenting the space before executing the drawing. The title of the work, Enfolding 280 Hours, has dual significance. In one sense, it refers to the estimated number of hours spent on the project. In another sense, it suggests the process by which disparate energies inherent in the space are harnessed and synthesized by the centripetal force of horizontal lines racing in opposite directions around the gallery.

Courtesy of Sun K. Kwak

Courtesy of Katie Smith

Her latest holographic sculptures are a reflection on life, illusion and the evolution of mankind. This serie feature a family of light beings “the homos luminosos”, living in a parallel, timeless dimension. For this year’s Frequency Festival Roseline will present a lightscape installation composed of two fibre optic sculptures from the Homos Luminosos series.

Photo via: Frequency

Photo via: Art Observed

Courtesy of  Humans since

This work is comprised of 288 individually working aluminum clocks which are run off of specialized software and controlled via iPad. The hands move both independently and collectively, creating patterns as well as stylized images and texts. A Million Times was on display at the Design Days Dubai from 18-21 March 2013.

Courtesy of  Humans since

Courtesy of  Humans since

Courtesy of Megan Geckler

The work’s scale is hard to discern until one views the video detailing its construction- the base is approximately 20 ft². The colour changes give the work an inherent sense of movement and artificial glow.

By: Matt Davis

Megan Geckler “Rewritten by Machine on New Technology”, ©2013 from Megan Geckler on Vimeo.

Courtesy of Megan Geckler

Courtesy of Situ Studio

Created from boardwalk planks salvaged from New York and New Jersey in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, the heart-shaped enclosure is illuminated from within its formal volume. Planks lift from a flat plane, creating new space and allowing entrance to a hollowed ground of sorts. If one choses, there’s a metaphor in there… The Heartwalk will be on display until 8 March, 2013.

By: Matt Davis

Courtesy of Situ Studio

Courtesy of  Squidsoup

Submergence lights is a beautiful recent installation at the Galleri Rom Oslo by Squidsoup. It invites visitors into its structure composed of more than 8000 points of light.

By: DH

Courtesy of  Squidsoup

Courtesy of Abhidnya Ghuge

Inspired by the cellular systems of the natural world, Ghuge deploys various print making techniques on hand made paper plates that she assembles into reef like forms suggestive of sponges or shellfish clusters or improbably massive wasp nests. It is all about home and how creatures large and small situate themselves within their environment as well as psychically within themselves. This process of situating oneself within routinely shifting conditions is common to all life forms and Ghuge’s meditative immersion in this most fundamental of creative processes offers intuitive insights and even intimations of solace.

Courtesy of Abhidnya Ghuge