Arif Asci's exhibit "Yelkovan", prepared for the Millî Reasurans Art Gallery, consists of photographs produced over a period of the last five years. In these photographs, Arif Asci attempts to reveal the secrets of the inconspicuous visual ties established among things which we see every day, every moment, without paying attention. A colorful beam of light which will infinitely be erased from our visual memory after a few minutes attributes a poetic mystery to objects which have unexpectedly come together as a result of being detached from their natural settings. A fragile perspective where one form engages with another, washed with the red of Pompei and the pastel tones of early Renaissance period wall paintings, remind us of how we can come eye to eye with a rich visual experience even in the simplest late noon light. Arif Asci brings a new individual interpretation to the concepts of looking and seeing from his own perspective, with these ostensibly simple compositions.
This exhibition “Yelkovan” by Arif Aşçı is crucial to understand the artist’s practice, because it combines all these thoughts. The title “Yelkovan” is a very specific choice: Yelkovan is the minute hand of the clock, of time passing—it’s the fine tuning of time. It is the reminder of minutes passing one by one. As we know that it is not possible to hold on to the moments passing, “Yelkovan” reminds us of the importance of living them, experiencing them, of feeling their emotions. In an interview, Arif Aşçı said that his only “regret” was not having kept a notebookwhen he was taking photographs. If we can’t hold time, perhaps it’s possible to make it permanent through experience.
“The clock is the space, its passing is time, its tuning is the person... Which shows that time and space exist only with the person.”
-Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar, Time Regulation Institute
