Volkan Aslan’s recent practice is influenced by both his recollections, as well as his impressions of the malleability of our perception of time.
These memories, half remembered, half forgotten, draw him to certain objects he comes across in his day-to-day life that recall his past. He playfully manipulates them to form surreal constructions that fuse his personal associations with new and unexpected interpretations.
Aslan’s three-channel video Home Sweet Home (2017) was shown at 15th Istanbul Biennial commissioned by Biennial curators Elmgreen & Dragset. With his three-channel video installation, Volkan Aslan questions the boundaries between the sedentary and the nomadic, the indoor and the outdoor, the safe and the unsafe situations, pointing out to the fragility of the current state of each and every one of us.
Volkan Aslan is born in 1982 in Ankara. He studied Painting at the Mersin University Faculty of Fine Arts in 2005. He currently lives and works in Istanbul, Turkey.
Gallery Exhibitions :
We forget because it works
A pillar of smoke
Home is where the (he)art is
1982, Lives and works in Istanbul, Turkey
Education
2005 Mersin University of Fine Arts Faculty, Painting Department, Mersin Turkey
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2021
SAĞLICAKLA KAL, SALT Galata, Istanbul, Turquie
2019
We forget because it works, Galerie PARIS – B, Paris, France
2018
Shoot Me! Don’t Turn Me Over!, Pi Artworks Istanbul, Turkey
2015
The Perfect Day, Pi Artworks Istanbul, Turkey
2014
A Day Not Yet Lived, Pi Artworks London, UK
2013
Don’t Forget to Remember, Arter – space for art, Istanbul, Turkey
2011
Volkan, Macka Art Gallery, Istanbul, Turkey
Unstable Repetitions, Pi Artworks Istanbul Istanbul, Turkey
2010
Those Who Wear the Same T-Shirt, Pi Artworks Istanbul, Turkey
2009
Four, Pi Artworks Istanbul, Turkey
2008
Concern, Pi Artworks Istanbul, Turkey
2007
Volkan Aslan in Istanbul, Under Construction, Istanbul, Turkey
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2019
A Confrontation of Ideals, An Ren Biennale, Anren, Sichuan, China
What time is it? Arter Istanbul, Istanbul,Turkey
A Pillar of Smoke, curated by Ilgın Deniz Akseloğlu and Yann Perreau Galerie PARIS-B, Paris, France
2018
Under the Radar 5533, curated by Kari Conte, International Studio & Curatorial Program (ISCP), New York, US
A Pillar of Smoke, Arles International Photo Festival, France
Home is Where the (He)art is, Galerie PARIS-B, Paris, France
First Round, Carmikli Collection, Galata Greek School, Istanbul, Turkey
2017
15th International Istanbul Biennial, Istanbul, Turkey
Harbor, Istanbul Modern Museum, Istanbul, Turkey
2016
This One Is Smaller Than This One…Carte Blanche: Serkan Özkaya and Paulina Bebecka, Galerist, Istanbul, Turkey
2015
Istanbul. Passion, Joy, Fury, curated by Hou Hanru with Ceren Erdem, Elena Motisi and Donatella Saroli, MAXXI Museum, Rome, Italy
2014
The Moving Museum Istanbul Exhibition, Turkey
Disquiet, curated by Nat Muller, Pi Artworks, Istanbul, Turkey
2013
Mom, am I barbarian, 13th Istanbul Biennial, Istanbul, Turkey
2012
Pi@ Q – Q Contemporary, Beirut, Lebanon
2011
Trade Routes, Pi Artworks Istanbul, Turkey
If the Nature is Heaven, the City is Hell, CerModern, Ankara, Turkey
2010
Second Exhibition, Arter – space for art, Istanbul, Turkey
When Ideas Become Crime, Depo, Istanbul, Turkey
Floating Volumes, 5533, Istanbul, Turkey
Floating Volumes, Frise, Hamburg, Germany
Stuff and Nonsense, CerModern, Ankara, Istanbul
2009
Too Good to Be True, Delfina Foundation, London, UK
Reciprocal Visit, Depo, Istanbul, Turkey
A Question of Staging, Landscape Perspectives, Istanbul, Turkey
Temporary Harassment, Istanbul 2010 Portable Art Project, Istanbul, Turkey
Once Upon a Time, 5533, Istanbul, Turkey and Bethanien Kunstlerhaus, Berlin, Germany
2008
On Produceability, New Talents, Köln, Germany
Save As, Contemporary Artists Exhibition, Triennale Bovisa Museum, Milano, Italy
Concern, Atelierfrankfurt, Frankfurt, Germany
Cultural Jam, Weimar, Germany
Accumulated: Put Aside, Left Aside, 5533, Istanbul, Turkey
2007
Art and Money, Siemens Art Gallery, Istanbul, Turkey
From Owner with View, Istanbul, Turkey
The Most Curatorial Biennial of the Universe, Apex Art Center, New York, USA
-X, Ankara, Turkey
6th Korean-Turkish Exchange Exhibition, Pi Artworks Istanbul, Turkey
Unfinished, BM Suma Contemporary Art Center, Istanbul, Turkey
2006
Between Two Sides, Istanbul, Turkey
So Far Away from Here, Ankara and Istanbul, Turkey
2005
Cultural Heritage, The Turkish-British Cultural Center, Ankara, Turkey
Free Zone – Neutral Area, Roxy, Istanbul, Turkey
Obsession, International Audio-Video Art Festival, Gallery X, Istanbul, Turkey
24th Contemporary Artists Exhibition, Akbank Art, Istanbul, Turkey
1st Electronic Art Festival, Centro Cultural Telemar, Rio De Janeiro, Brazil
2004
New Proposals – New Propositions, Borusan Culture and Arts, Istanbul, Turkey
2003
Choose a Dog for Yourself and Bark, Adana and Mersin, Turkey
2002
3rd International Student Triennial, Marmara University, Istanbul, Turkey
RESIDENCIES
2010
Artist-to-Artist, Delfina Foundation, London, UK
2008
International Studio Program, ACC-Weimar, Germany
PUBLIC AND PRIVATE COLLECTIONS
Pizzuti Collection, Columbus, Ohio, USA
Rodney D Lubeznik Collection, Chicago, USA
Carmikli Collection, Istanbul, Turkey
Eczacibasi Collection, Istanbul, Turkey
Hitay Collection, Istanbul, Turkey
Ozyegin University Collection, Istanbul, Turkey
Vehbi Koç Foundation, Istanbul, Turkey
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Group show
WHAT YOU’VE MISSED …
05/25/2020 - 07/25/2020 -
Volkan Aslan
We Forget Because It Works
11/16/2019 - 01/11/2020 -
A look at Turkey's contemporary scene - Curated by Ilgın Deniz Akseloğlu and Yann Perreau
A PILLAR OF SMOKE
11/15/2018 - 01/12/2019 -
Group show curated by Yann Perreau
HOME IS WHERE THE (HE)ART IS
02/01/2018 - 03/24/2018
Volkan Aslan - Home Sweet Home
Home Sweet Home
Text by Pablo Larios for the 15th Istanbul Biennial
Volkan Aslan’s video installation Home Sweet Home (2017) is a meditative take on realities of displacement. The work commemorates individuals forced to make long journeys, such as migrants or those who have suf- fered a loss of home. A starting point for the work is a hybrid boat-home structure found commonly in poor areas within large cities, and used to relocate homes through bodies of water. Aslan’s video depicts this iconic image of tragic human itinerancy: the boat as an emblem of homes forcibly mobile.
The piece employs imagery of water, journey-making. With disjunctions of time and perspetive, it is also a poetic parable of the way all people share in an i nerant and fragile human condi on, though we may experience this condition vastly differently. The work comprises a 3-channel video installation set within the Bosporus Strait in Istanbul. Scenes of domestic interiors and daily routines meld with views of landscapes of shores and city views. A woman sits on the front of a boat, looks out on to the water and observing the passing landscape. As the work develops, we see, with sweetly sad irony, that the three ‘places’ in the lm – which ini ally seemed dis nct – are in fact depic ons of di erent views onto realities that are actually more linked than they initially seemed.
The film speaks to various forms of collapse: between transit, passage and home; between the architecture of inside and outside. It reflects medita vely on a world upended and inverted, in which seemingly everyone is on the move and in disarray. The work elicits how even tragedies far and away hit home. Even sites which initially seemed to be too far away from us to affect us are closer than we think, and neighbors we may not they are in fact right beside us.
The work Home Sweet Home, 2017 by Volkan Aslan is commissioned by 15th Istanbul Biennial, curated by Elmgreen & Dragset