Invitation to the Defense of Aykan Safoğlu

The Examination Panel is made up of: Felicitas Thun-Hohenstein (chair), Renate Lorenz and Anette Baldauf (supervisors) and Kerstin Stakemeier (external appraiser, Akademie der bildenden Künste Nürnberg).

Abstract

My high school, the İstanbul Erkek Lisesi [Istanbul High School for Boys], which is housed in the former headquarters of a 20th-century European credit institution named the Düyûn-ı Umûmiye [Ottoman Public Debt Administration], becomes the imaginative site for my artistic research. If this German school abroad in Istanbul were still a credit institution, a time machine, how could it inform me about the historical processes through which a ‘feeling of indebtedness’ educates collective desires conforming to German labor, emancipation, and citizenship models? Keeping Lauren Berlant’s concept of ‘cruel optimism’ and Tina Campt’s ‘still-moving-images’ dear to my research, I critique the violent histories along the modern German-Turkish industrial complexes of labor, culture, and military. Therefore, I lean on intergovernmental agreements and familial biographies of labor, migration, and conversion. Point of departure is my solo exhibition ‘Teneffüs’ [Recess], which opened at Salt Galata (Istanbul, 2022) in the former headquarters of the Bank-ı Osmanî-i Şahane [Imperial Ottoman Bank].

Short biography

Aykan Safoğlu stages photographic narratives in which his longings, dreams, and contradictions challenge historical time. The artist obtained his MA in “Art-in-Context” at the University of the Arts Berlin and his MFA in Photography from the Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts at Bard College in New York. In his practice, his material is always his personal relation to photography, disclosing how his attention is translated into various artistic forms, such as moving images, sculptural images, and image interventions. Recent solo exhibitions include “Reckless” at Kulturhaus Obere Stube (2024), “Taurus” at Pilot, Vienna (2023), “Recess” at Salt Galata, Istanbul (2022), and “I’ll Be Your Mirror” at Kunstverein Göttingen (2021). His work was also included in the following exhibitions: Rencontres d’Arles 2021, the 39th EVA International, VIDEONALE.18, and the 11th Berlin Biennial for Contemporary Art. Safoğlu is the recipient of the Grand Prize of the City of Oberhausen at the 59th International Short Film Festival Oberhausen (2013) and the Birgit Jürgenssen Prize (2021).

The thesis defense will be in English and will take place at the Academy at Schillerplatz in Turm 2, room DG06.

We are looking forward to welcoming you.