CENGİZ ÇEKİL

With a Cleaning Cloth

Cengiz Çekil’s new work of 144 pieces manipulates the formal dynamics of the medium of painting; repetition—an important motif in the artist’s work—is placed at the center of this series. The form consists of a cleaning cloth, canvas, pieces of string, and hooks. On the background is paint and lace, differentiated from each other within the systems that Çekil has constructed based on the color of the paint and the different types of lace. This new work can be traced back to Çekil’s Obsession of 1974. The obsession that Çekil had expressed in a one-of installation before is now repeated over and over again, simultaneously inhabited by craftsmanship and automatized serial productions. The quotidian and domestic nature of the material is in conflict with the systems and numbers that the artist has constructed. The artist internalizes the ruthless autonomy of the female that he takes as his subject in this body of work.