Hüsamettin Koçan’s new exhibition ‘Behind the Shadow’ has opened at Galeri Merkür. The exhibition, which opened at Galeri Merkür, can be seen until April 19. The proceeds of a certain portion of the works in the exhibition will be donated to the “Women’s Education Center”, a project of the Baksı Museum in Bayburt.
Painter and academic Prof. Dr. Hüsamettin Koçan says hello to spring with a surprise exhibition and meets art lovers with the “Behind the Shadow” exhibition.
The exhibition, which opened at Galeri Merkür, can be seen until April 19.
The proceeds of a certain portion of the works in the exhibition will be donated to the “Women’s Education Center”, a project of the Baksı Museum in Bayburt.
In her new exhibition, Koçan blends traditional products produced with creativity and patience by women of Bayburt with her own unique artistic language. Reconsidering the women’s bead knitting technique with a contemporary interpretation, Koçan reinterprets the hair where crocheted works are placed, this form of bread and food baking in Anatolia, as a form where women both make bread and food and earn their living through these crocheted works.
Koçan emphasizes that the women of Bayburt created a sun symphony by wanting to create “sun” motifs from bead knitting in line with their own desires.
THE COMBINATION OF CRAFT AND ART
Koçan says about the exhibition, “An exhibition that brings together tradition and the contemporary, seeks the future, and seeks the future in the world of the past.” Stating that she has always made room for local women’s power and creativity in the Baksı Museum she founded in Bayburt, Koçan contributes to the women’s world as a male hand in this exhibition. Emphasizing that they have also switched to a women-focused management system at the Baksı Museum, Koçan says, “Our biggest problem in Turkey, especially in the east, is the issue of women being excluded from production. That is the real issue. For this reason, we are already building a women’s employment center. This exhibition is a result of that idea. Women said let’s do beadwork, let’s do crochet, so we said let’s everyone make a sun in our workshop and they made their suns. We created a series called ‘In Pursuit of the Sun’ and we included the intense labor of women in this exhibition. Thus, we combined craft and art.” Koçan says, “We have never looked at folk arts objectively,” and adds, “Bridges need to be torn down as well.” “Women have such a foundation. We put them side by side in the ‘Come Time, Go Time’ exhibition, women in the plateau are as creative and imaginative as those in the city. That is why I have an objection to this hierarchy. There is no such thing as upper art, is there such a thing as upper? There is no such hierarchy. There may be diachrony,” and expresses his perspective on art. Projections of Privacy In the conceptual integrity of the exhibition, the “shadow” symbolizes the privacy of women, while the “behind” symbolizes the reflections of this privacy on the inner world. Koçan explains: “Shadows are actually things that we push back. We are directed to represent ourselves as shadows rather than being ourselves. However, there is a reality there. I wanted to reach that reality. This is more of a women’s reality. This is more of a matter of the conflict between craft and our age. It is a matter of bringing together the unspoken behind all these issues and forming a few meaningful sentences.”
Source: https://www.cumhuriyet.com.tr/kultur-sanat/husamettin-kocan-in-yeni-sergisi-golgenin-arkasindaki-galeri-2309781