Selim Birsel An Isolated Gaze

The exhibition chiefly puts forward Birsel’s works from 2019 and 2017, yet it also includes a reinterpretation of Birsel’s installation displayed at the 4th Istanbul Biennial in 1995 and a painting series from 2006.

Birsel recommends the audience to have “an isolated gaze” towards the earth as a planet. He thinks that “artist doesn’t solve; only feels what might happen in the future and points to it from a visual world.” Indicating that our world is being dragged towards a darkness in every aspect, Birsel reveals the importance of taking a step out to look from afar in order to see how similar twists in history have been faced and to learn to deal with the darkness that awaits us in the future. As in all attrition and collapse, he suggests that we start by focusing on our own garden, reorganizing it with what we have come to find in our sacks, and making it bloom again. To do this, we need to redefine both the contents of our sack and our garden and to persevere with goodwill. Setting off from the conditions that gave birth to the Enlightenment, the upheavals in Ancient Greece, and the primeveal legends of Mesopotamia, he expresses that collecting hope from terror is not only possible but also necessary.

Almost all of Birsel’s recent paintings surround outside sceneries with layers of dark frames. The outside looks illuminated, colorful, and alluring; however, it’s apparent that no one has been out yet. In An Isolated Gaze, Birsel points at outside while reminding us that we are still in.