Harun Antakyalı, Untitled, Mixed Media, 150×150 cm, 2016

Curator

Efe Korkut Kurt

Artists

Harun Antakyalı, Sercan Apaydın, Eylül Aslan, Alper Bıçaklıoğlu, Murat Germen, Ece Kalabak, A. Cem Şahin.

According to Lacan phantasy is the foundation of desire – desire cannot remain standing without it and it goes missing like a flash-in-the-pan. So, what puts the phantasy into action?  If we say it in psychoanalytic terms, it is the one’s unbearable void of desire felt for the other. We could say that phantasy is the curtain that we install in order to cover up this void. If we approach from this perspective, phantasy functions as a base for the realisation of the impossibility of desire, and in a broader sense the ideal of real happiness.

In this context, it is clear that neither a life, a struggle, nor societal can survive. So, what is the desire for this desire that will never reach to its goal? To where does this desire call us, what does it demand from us?  What are we going to do with this desire that is in our hands?  A new and bigger construction of a phantasy, far from moving away from it, will support the reality and open up meaningful channels in the name of creating a new life. If the imaginary production of such possibilities are awaiting to be realised through the artists, this exhibition will be an attempt to promenade around this answer.

“Ne pas ceder sur son désir!” – “Not give up on your desire!” is a reference Lacan presents in the seventh of his seminars. This is an ethical emphasis of what we are going to to when we start to face with our phantasy field and confront our true desire. We suggest this reference as an expression of transition from an ambiguous idea of utopia to a new idea of utopia that tramps around the boundaries of truth. We think that the envisions that can emerge in the dialogue in between each works and with the other exhibitions can give us clues of a new utopia.

* Not give up on your desire! (J. Lacan, Seminar VII)

Realistic Utopias

Artist Utopia

İstanbul Art Fair Tüyap

November 4-12 2017

A.Cem Şahin, The Truth Of  The False Garden 1, Linol  and Collage on Paper , 200x 240 cm, 2017