Mutlu Aksu's first solo exhibition, 'Reality Show,' which explores how everyday life is visually constructed and how our sense of reality is shaped within this construct, will be on display at Galeri 77 until May 23rd.
A "reality show" is defined as a format where real people's real lives are showcased in front of a camera. But when we watch a reality show, do we truly see the truth itself? After the cameras are set up, the lights adjusted, and the scene goes through the editing room, is it still real? How much can we talk about the reality of the images we see when we reach for our phones every morning, reviewing, framing, and editing them before sharing them? More importantly, how does what we call real life differ from a reality show?
Mutlu Aksu's exhibition, 'Reality Show,' which will be on display at Galeri 77 until May 23rd, stems precisely from these questions. The artist examines the mundane moments of everyday life, familiar objects, known spaces, and the roles assigned to individuals by social structures. While making visible the power relations and symbols of power operating beneath this surface, she focuses on how individuals experience these and how they internalize them, often unconsciously. In doing so, she creates a skillfully constructed visual narrative that avoids the pretension of documentary representation.
Aksu's starting point in her work is often a personal observation, an image encountered on social media, or a tension felt in daily life... This starting point transforms into a social question in her work. The artist's fundamental concern is how the relationship between reality, representation, and identity is processed within contemporary visual culture. The visual norms propagated by social media, in particular, produce an implicit order that determines what is worth seeing, acceptable, or desirable. Aksu reconstructs both the aesthetic language and the ideological structure of this order in her artistic production.
One of the key strategies Aksu employs in constructing this visual order is the conscious use of kitsch aesthetics. Bright surfaces, decorative details, emotionally evocative objects, and easily readable scenes at first glance create a sense of familiarity in the viewer; recurring figures, patterns, and forms link this familiarity to the repetitive behavioral patterns, social roles, and invisible mechanisms of oppression in daily life. However, the artist does not endorse this order as it is; the absurd positioning of the figures, the artificial tension of the scenes, and the subtle deviations within the repetitions reveal that the image does not present a natural and stable reality.
The smooth, controlled, and layered surface approach, combined with flat color areas, sharp encounters, and oppressive backgrounds, further intensifies this artificiality. Thus, it not only draws the viewer into a familiar visual world but also prompts them to question how this world is constructed and what aesthetic tools legitimize it. Reality Show invites the viewer to reconsider contemporary visual culture, where the line between reality and fiction is increasingly blurred.
Source: https://www.haberturk.com/mutlu-aksudan-solo-sergi-reality-show-3876705