Can Altay
dal 11/10/2010 al 26/11/2010
Segnalato da
11/10/2010
Can Altay
The Showroom, London
The artist will transform The Showroom into the production site of a single edition newspaper: The Church Street Partners' Gazette. Through workshops, areas of investigation will include rights to space, promises and threats related to regeneration, and limits presented by physical, social, political and economic boundaries.
The Showroom is delighted to present the first solo show in London by one of Turkey’s best-known young artists, Can Altay.
Altay will transform The Showroom into the production site of a single edition newspaper: The Church Street Partners’ Gazette. The project will draw on research and dialogues with a wide range of people connected to the local area, who Altay terms ‘partners’. Through workshops at The Showroom under the headings of ‘Partnerships’, ‘Boundaries’ and ‘Transformation’, areas of investigation will include rights to space, promises and threats related to regeneration, and limits presented by physical, social, political and economic boundaries.
The Showroom’s director Emily Pethick comments: ‘Can Altay’s Gazette furthers The Showroom’s focus on experimental artistic practices, creating a playful open editorial situation that responds on the ground to pertinent unreported issues that transcend the local context.’
The installation will have two centres of activity: a meeting area, where the content of the paper is generated through open discussions and research, and a changing display of the Gazette, incorporating large headline boards announcing the latest news and fragments of the editorial that is constantly updated and reconfigured as it is produced. The final version of the Gazette will go into print at the end of the show, offering its readers a study of the overlooked issues of local urban life.
Altay’s work is known for its focus on improvised architectures in the city, unauthorised systems of organisation and models of co-habitation. The Gazette continues his interest in ‘setting a setting’, a body of work where he proposes and constructs provisional spaces for gatherings.
Notes to editors:
Can Altay (born Ankara, Turkey in 1975) has a PhD in Art, Design, and Architecture from Bilkent University (2004), an MFA and BFA from Bilkent University, and a degree in Critical Studies from Malmö Art Academy and Lund University, Sweden. He has had solo exhibitions in Kunstlerhaus Bethanien, Germany (2008), Sala Rekalde, Spain (2006) and Spike Island, UK (2007) and has presented work at Istanbul, Havana and Gwangju biennials, as well as at the Walker Art Center (USA), Van Abbe Museum (The Netherlands), ZKM (Germany), PS1 MoMA (USA), and Platform Garanti (Turkey). The Showroom is supported by Arts Council England and members of the gallery’s Supporters Scheme. The Gazette is part of Circular Facts, funded with support from the European Commission.
Image: Can Altay, Ey Ahali/Setting a Setting/Letting a Setting Go, Installation view, Spike Island, Bristol, 2007
For further press information and images please contact
Natasha Tebbs on 020 7724 4300 or natasha@theshowroom.org
Preview: 12 October 2010, 6.30-8.30pm
The showroom
63, Penfold Street - London
Opening hours: Wednesday – Saturday, 12-6pm