Just Before Paradise

CENGİZ TEKİN

24 MARCH 2016 - 30 APRİL 2016

Cengiz Tekin’s second solo exhibition at Pilot Galeri, ‘‘Just Before Paradise’’ will be on view between March 24 and April 23, 2016. Tekin turns the gallery into a project space. With a special interest in the refugee crisis -the central issue of our day- he focused on drawing the works together that are closely linked.

The exhibition opens with the video "Red Carpet", dated back to 2012. In this 4-minute video that could be considered as a prelude to the exhibition, we see a red carpet rolled out in a muddy puddle as it vanishes in it. As the muddy puddle underlines the vagueness of today and future, thinking that what is underwater could well come up to the surface eventually increases the tension.

The exhibition takes its title from Tekin’s latest video work that was shot in 2015. The video, which was premiered in Rome Maxxi Museum’s ongoing exhibition “Istanbul. Passion, Joy, Fury”, will be screened in Istanbul for the first time. We see a group of refugees waist deep down in dark waters in the video. That group of young men seem like they are singing a quiet anthem as the waves lap up against the shore. They all have a proud expression on their faces as they realize the last duty for their gone friends with whom they shared a common fate. ‘’Just Before Paradise’’ draws attention to forced migration and refugee crisis and also depicts the tides between death and life as a boundless crisis instead of a regional one. Both videos in the exhibition share a cautious silence which is present in most of Tekin’s works. That silence is more of a survival strategy against the traumatic experiences in life rather than a resignation.

Another premiere of this special exhibition is a sculpture of a life jacket. Instead of a normal life jacket, a sculpture of it made out of marble speaks for itself on this weighty issue. Is the survival effort of actors in "Just Before Paradise" resisting to their fate and their dangerous journey in vain? As Ibn Khaldun said, is geography fate?

“Just Before Paradise” will be open to visitors until 23 April Saturday.