The Empire Project / SENA. 

23 October – 29 November 2014 

The Empire project gave a place to really interesting domestic and foreign artists including in itself as it does every year. SENA, who has been attending the fair since 2006, was one of them. She mostly scrutinize issues included in the natural cycle of life, but has become unimportant since they are used a lot, such as family, home, fertility, murder for honour, birth and death. The solo exhibition -titled '5'- of the artist, who internalizes  the main idea and looks for different answers to its questions in 'Hacer', which was exhibited during the fair, and in her other prominent works, is made out of three dimensional experiments as well as marble, wool, canvas, glass, paper, stone and sculpture techniques.

The exhibition is drawing the borders in the areas, where these suppressed experiences that loose their significance although they look personal and also SENA is constantly questioning, meet with the social ones.  She, in a way, displays her own femininity, her experiences during her pregnancy and the inner reflections of her body's stages.

Having a unique approach from the perspective of its content and usage of material, the exhibition touches upon the sociological place of female today while it is carrying the traces of a uncomfortable state beyond questioning the murder for humour and fact of body. She reaches the breaking point in herself while she touches upon these. Being a woman, the constantly changing perception of femininity, the expectations from woman and femininity... This exhibition, in which a woman can find all these or something from themselves, is going to be opne until 29th November.

Mixer // Berkay Buğdanoğlu 
7 October – 14 December 2014

Being one of the pioneer representatives of contemporary art, of which the borders are expending more each day,  Mixer attended Contemporary Istanbul second time this year. One of the young artists of the gallery, which attracted considerable attention with the works they exhibited in the fair, was Berkay Buğdanoğlu. Artist, who has go into the "Top 5 Emerging Artists” of Artsy, was among the successful names that has become the center of attraction.

Opening his solo exhibition called “Chaoskampf” in Mixer a week before the fair, the name of Berkay Buğdanoğlu's solo exhibition, which is taken from mythology, is based on a concept that is picturing the eternal war between chaos and order.   Mentioned in the legends based the power relations on the continuous oppositions, this war has been going on in between a god living in the sky and a monster in the shape of a snake and sometimes as dragon. 

The artist is defining the meaning of Chaos with different techniques he uses and is questioning its reflection on cultures. Showing us that the chaos and order collide on the surface as well with different tones merging into each other in his pictures, Buğdanoğlu is indicating that chaos and the opposing can in fact be the reflection of each other when it is approached with a new point of view. While the exhibition is questioning contradictions in between the dark side of civilizations and existential struggle that has been even the topic of legends for centuries, it is also colliding chaos with order as well as explaining the ones, who are against it, with its figures.

ArtON // ILGIN SEYMEN 
22 October – 29 November 2014 

Meeting with art fans with her exhibition called "Sonsuz Körlük (Forever Blind)" in October, Ilgın Seymen's works were among the popular ones in Contemporary Istanbul.

Using the fast consumption materials that are among the indispensable of our daily lives, the artist is questioning the individualizing of consumption frenzy, which has been going on in our century, in a colourful and humorous way.

Seymen, who is criticising the reflection of transitory and superficial states of happiness that comes with hunger for consumption and its twin capitalism, does not ignore to question what kind of destruction it in fact causes in our inner world. She also emphasizes that the decisions we give by ourselves or our success have inversely proportional importance with our expenditure. Attracting attention to the blindness we are in due to the consumption politics that trigger our instinct to own, the artist also mentions that this state is also related to our point of view on life... On the other hand, the name of the exhibition is referring to the system creating a blindness of instant happinesses by closing our eyes to existing realities.

Being works that were sought after, ‘Kusursuzum, Daha İyiyim (I am Perfect / I am Better)’ , ‘Beni Al, Beni Al (Buy Me, Buy Me)’ formed out of apples reveal consumption, which are used to even in small shops, and greedy state of feeling.  The exhibition of the artist, who continues to search for different forms with interdisciplinary experimentation in her works, can be visited in ArtOn Gallery until the end of month.