"DIALOGUE: Signs and Writings"
Günther Uecker will come himself to set up the exhibition and will also attend the opening.
For the exhibition prepared in collaboration with Istanbul Goethe Institute, the first Turkish and German book about the artist has been published. The book includes texts written by Peter Sloterdijk (philosopher) and Levent Çalıkoğlu.
Günther Uecker came to set up the exhibition himself and attended the opening.
Celebrating his 75th birthday on March 11 with a major retrospective exhibition at the Berlin Gropius Museum, Günther Uecker is among the most important artists of contemporary Europe. The artistic activity he prepared in response to the chaos, terrorism, occupation, and war conditions that engulfed the world after the September 11 attacks, which draw attention to the deep contradiction and opposition between the essence of "peace and forgiveness" found in monotheistic religions and their ideological use as sources of terrorism and violence today, is presented in Istanbul in collaboration with the Goethe Institute and the Millî Reasürans Art Gallery. In his installation titled "DIALOGUE- Signs and Writings", Uecker highlights the reality of violence and the alienation between religions, with inscriptions of verses about peace from the Old Testament (Torah and Bible) and the Quran written on fabrics and hung on two opposite walls. Between them, in the area I call "painful points," black fabrics, resembling bandages wrapping a wound, will be tied to logs randomly struck with an axe and nailed, secured at the bottom with sandbags to prevent them from moving. While there are painful points in the middle, the essential commandments of peace, forgiveness, and tranquility belonging to the faith worlds of Islam, Judaism, and Christianity are in a mutual dialogue.
Uecker describes his installation as follows: "Verses about peace from the Old Testament (Torah and Bible) and the Quran will be written on fabrics and hung on two opposite walls. Between them, in the area I call 'painful points,' black fabrics, resembling bandages wrapping a wound, will be tied to logs randomly struck with an axe and nailed, secured at the bottom with sandbags to prevent them from moving. While there are painful points in the middle, the essential commandments of peace, forgiveness, and tranquility belonging to the faith worlds of Islam, Judaism, and Christianity are in a mutual dialogue."
Uecker's activity is presented with a book containing an evaluation essay by Peter Sloterdijk, director of the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts Cultural Institute and dean of the Karlsruhe Academy. Particularly known for his studies and publications on culture and philosophy of religion, Peter Sloterdijk, in his essay, examines the relationship between modernity and chaos, starting from Nietzsche's quote "There must be chaos within you to give birth to a dancing star" and writes the following: "I tell you: there is something different within you. You are still someone other than yourself and hope for your own future. A little bad, a little disorderly, a little uncalculated, a matter of coincidences, and then coincidences will follow. But I see their future, the time when no one carries evil, disorder, and uncalculation within themselves anymore. The era will begin when the starting point of coincidences no longer separates from the coincidences that follow it. The period of hollowed-out humans will begin. They will do more than ever, but the process of creation will end. Along with it, everything that distinguishes between internal and external will fade away. The process of elevation will cease. It will continue elsewhere, in your exteriors, in warehouses, in networks, in computers. Modernity is the self-directedness of prophecies against themselves."
