When Halil Altındere arrived in Istanbul from Adana in 1996 to complete a post-graduate degree in painting at Marmara University, an independent and powerful art scene was already picking up speed there, its way having been paved thanks not least to the Istanbul Biennial. In a tense political climate, marked by state repression and the rise of nationalist tendencies and terrorism as well as by economic neo-liberalism, the transformation from tradition to modernity, the relationship between center and periphery, globalization and regionalism, and issues around social conditions were being renegotiated in art. From the beginning, Altındere was one of the main protagonists of this generation, but not only as a visual artist. As a curator he was dealing critically with the issue of who had the authority to define and evaluate art; and through the exhibitions he organized, he also forged an important link between Istanbul and his fellow artists from other regions of the country. As co-editor of the art magazine art-ist Contemporary Art, and of exhibition catalogues and books, he substantially contributed to the debates on contemporary art.
An attentive, sensitive and precise observer with a keen sense for grievances of any kind, he accompanies the developments in contemporary art and Turkish society, gets involved, and, as an agitator, generates not conflict but chiefly discussion. Community, society, government, authority, power and control, institutional critique and subcultures are the central themes in the works of Halil Altındere, who makes installations and objects, but primarily works in the media of video and photography, even as his concept of pictorial composition is always characterized by painting. He is not a studio artist; his preferred place of production is the street, where he draws his material from the surroundings of everyday life and questions the meanings of things by manipulating found objects from real life. Altındere’s works explore the questions of how we define society, what mechanisms hold us together, and what role politics, taboos and traditions play in this process. The works deal with self-assurance, cultural identity, nationalism and chauvinism, with opposition to authoritarian structures and to the status quo within the field of art, while also referring to the potential of art as a means of critique and resistance.
One of Altındere’s important stylistic devices is his light-hearted, ironic and laconic humor that gets translated into strong and meaningful images that hold our standards of value up for consideration. His anarchic and subversive critique of the state and its ideologies, and his skepticism about mainstream institutions has set new, progressive standards in contemporary Turkish art. His works are political and yet so subtle that they cannot be reduced to political statements. Especially in his late works, Altındere finds poetic and elegiac images, and demonstrates that art can be a response to authoritarian structures and deadlocked conditions. Art is not only beautiful, sometimes it can cause pain, like the Boxing Bag (2012) that hangs apparently harmlessly in the exhibition space.
Barbara Heinrich
Halil Altındere was born in Mardin in 1971. In 2004, he participated in Manifesta 4 in Frankfurt, in the 4th Gwangju Biennial and the 4th Cetinje Biennial, in 2005, in the 9th Istanbul Biennial, in 2007, in documenta 12 in Kassel. He contributed to important international exhibitions in New York, Rio de Janeiro, Bern, Copenhagen, Seattle, Adelaide, Moen, Amsterdam, Linz, Belgrade, Istanbul, etc., and in renowned institutions such as Centre Pompidou, Paris, Essl Museum, Wien, and Neue Galerie, Graz. In Germany he took part in projects at Neues Museum, Nuernberg, Museum Weserburg, Bremen, Kunsthalle Fridericianum, Kassel, Halle fuer Kunst, Lueneburg, TANAS, Akademie der Kuenste and Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin.
TANAS Berlin hosts the first institutional solo exhibition of this outstanding artist.
