KasselerKunstVereinsHeim - Program June - Nezaket Ekici
Friday, June 8, 2007, 8 p.m.
Nezaket Ekici (D)
"Self Deliverance"
Installation, Performance
An attractive young woman walks along the high street Taksim in Istanbul in a dress made of blue glass eyes. In Turkey these glass eyes are said to be a powerful talisman that protects you against the evil eye. In a dress like this, all eyes are on the artist ("Nazar", 2005). Ekici is particularly interested in such distortions of cultural traditions that either transport or hide what they are saying about body awareness, humanity, or political or religious contexts. In her numerous performances she meets the challenge of such incongruencies. She declares the taboos of her own sex and her own culture to be the very topics of her works when she dresses in the Islamic chador and then sits down next to a pig ("No Pork but Pig", 2004) or questions intercultural taboos when she plays the German national anthem with the Turkish national anthem softly audible in the background or vice-versa ("National Anthems", 2005). Her performances are characterized neither by agitation nor sarcasm, but rather by a simple earnestness and dignity - or even humour, for example, when she tries to find a needle in a 2.5 meter high haystack ("Obstacle", 2005. In any case, Nezaket Ekici's new performance will be a surprise to the Kunstvereinsheim.
*1970 in Kirsehir/Türkei. Study art and performance: Prof. Marina Abramovic, HBK Braunschweig. Lives and works: Berlin, Stuttgart.
Curator: Bernhard Balkenhol
