Bozlu Art Project opens the new season with one of the most remarkable contemporary artists, Ali Alışır. After the exhibitions of “Virtual Bodies”, “Virtual Places”, “Virtual Wars” and “Virtual Landscapes” which artist questions the concepts of reality and virtuality, Alışır focuses on the relation of the motion of the universe with the life of the modern human beings in the exhibition of “Cosmos” which is curated by Oğuz Erten. The exhibition that is organized with the help of its technology sponsor Sony Turkey can be visited between September 6th and October 20th at Bozlu Art Project Nişantaşı.
In his new exhibition, Ali Alışır offers a path which focuses on the relationship between the microcosmos and macro cosmos of the human beings and universe. Alışır points out that the way of understanding Cosmos relies on to understand the human beings and he similarly indicates that the opposite of it is also true. The works of the artist which underline the similarity and integrity between these two concepts, emphasize that the universe is a whole from its smallest element to largest element and human begins to carry all thing regarding the universe inside of them. In his pictures which have a black background representing the universe, the artist includes his own photographs which are city views and people images as the motion of the universe.
Alışır strengthens conceptual background of the exhibition by giving examples from various stops of the intellectual history of humanity. He expresses that ancient philosophers notice the key role of human begins regarding the extraordinary order of the universe and the puzzle of life. For instance, he points out the idea of Pythagoras which indicates that human beings and universe were created in the image of the God and to understand one of them, means to reach the knowledge of the others.
The artist reveals that this ontological connection shows no difference in visual level and the idea of “it is a figurative and real similarity between all pieces of the universe whether they are visible or invisible” is mentioned often throughout the history of philosophy and religions. Moreover, he ensamples this, with the similar movement of the Earth around the sun and rotation of the electrons around the proton.
“A never ending dance”
Alışır points out that this movement is a result of the continuously motion of the universe, he provides a unity between this motion and movement of the modern life by stating “a never ending dance” and he questions the necessity of understanding the life on Earth to understand universe. As Carl Sagan mentions his book “Cosmos”, considering the idea that all of us made of star dust, he invites us to understand the pieces of the whole, today’s human begins and today’s life.
By building his exhibition on this conceptual background, Ali Alışır brings together the continuous motion with the people and modern life at same place, his thematic understanding is found its most clear expression in his own words;
“I would like to try to tell you that we are both the children of sky and the Earth on the other hand I would like to take your attention that our process of living on Earth is not just an exploration of the universe but also the exploration of ourselves.”
