Curated by Selen Ansen, the exhibition Suppose You Are Not probes the ways in which the domestic context of a private collection can be transferred into a museum context. In so doing, it explores the possibilities of restaging and articulating the affinities created between distinct objects by means of a collector's desires and endeavours. The exhibition, which spans the 4th and 3rd-floor galleries of Arter, brings together works by almost 400 artists, anonymous artefacts and mass-produced items, as well as multifarious objects. Initially formed for an individual purpose within the boundaries of a private space, now made public through a curatorial approach in an art institution, this body of works presents a world at the junction of times and forms that defy habitual classifications. This world, which brings to existence the collector as an abstract subject interacting with the artefacts in their possession, allows a form of experience that connects reality and fiction, as objects leaving the private sphere reformulate their unique character in a new context. Approaching the collection as a multifaceted and living organism, Suppose You Are Not proposes to reflect upon the kinship between the ordinary and the extraordinary, the practice of collecting and the objects that populate our daily lives.
Formed with works selected from the Ömer Koç Collection, Suppose You Are Not is concerned with finding worldly ways to rise upwards in the world where everything falls and keeps falling, and with providing possibilities to formulate infinitude where finitude is the rule. Based on Omar Khayyam’s (1048-1131) verses, where the poet reminds us to embrace life freely by transcending the limits of our own selves, the exhibition invites visitors to challenge given boundaries while exploring the attribution of new meanings to objects in a realm devoid of chronology and hierarchy.
In this territory populated by objects of all sorts, the conglomeration of books, furniture, paintings, sculptures and photographs not only tells us of human pleasures, desires, aspirations and dreams of past lives; it also reflects the spirited viewpoint of the collector. Suppose You Are Not delves into the passionate striving to collect and preserve the traces of humanity, the good and the evil, the ephemeral gestures, states, allusions and movements ranging from the most sublime to the most mundane, from the most permanent to the most ephemeral, which manage to persist by being conveyed from the dead to the living. Through the connections they give birth to in the exhibition space, the numerous works and objects brought together open up a field of vision that allows the emergence of new associations and alliances.
For more information about the book accompanying the exhibition, please click here.
Please click here to view the list of exhibition-related publications accessible from the Arter Library.
Artists Featured in the Exhibition:
Alvar Aalto, Melike Abasıyanık Kurtiç, Anthony Ackrill, Rebecca Ackroyd, Ansel Adams, AdeY, Ahu Akgün, Rasim Aksan, Francesco Albano, Pilar Albarracín, Ellen Altfest, Carl Amann, Doug Anderson, Erik Anderson, Gary Anderson, Palle Anderson, S.A. Anderson, Janine Antoni, François Arnal, Daniel Arsham, Yüksel Arslan, Hale Asaf, Eylül Aslan, Jules Barbey d’Aurevilly, Deborah Azzopardi, Josephine Baker, César Baldaccini, Tufan Baltalar, Balthus, Ronit Baranga, Emin Barın, Clive Barker, Sam Barnett, George Barris, Étienne Barrot, Gregory Barsamian, Massimo Bartolini, Bartošová, Şeyma Barut, Bahadır Baruter, Georges Bataille, Charles Baudelaire, Kerem Ozan Bayraktar, Peter Beard, Cecil Beaton, Beejoir, Fritz Behn, Tom Bell, Léa Belooussovitch, Hans Berger, Sabri Berkel, Semiha Berksoy, Jean-Joseph Bernard, Bertozzi & Casoni, Tony Bevan, Aenne Biermann, Marc Bijl, Aysel Bodur, Stefano Bombardieri, Rudolph Bone, Bashir Borlakov, Osvaldo Borsani, Louise Bourgeois, Norbertine Bresslern-Roth, Jonny Briggs, Rosalie Brill, Hans Brockhage & Erwin Andra, Ondrej Brody, Elina Brotherus, Vincent Michael Brown, Tania Bruguera, David Buckingham, Betty Bui, Balthasar Burkhard, Gökçen Cabadan, Claude Cahun, José Zanine Caldas, Scott Campbell, CANAN, Leonor Caraballo & Abou Farman, Jacques Carelman, Paul & Laura Carey, Étienne Carjat, Asger Carlsen, Maurizio Cattelan, Carl Cauer, Patrick Caulfield, Marc Chagall, Giorgio de Chirico, Ricardo Cinalli, Chuck Close, John Coplans, Joseph Cornell, Denis Cospen, Ian Cumberland, Zhang Dali, Les Dalo, Arth Daniels, Alexandre-Gabriel Decamps, Jean Marie Delaltre, Thomas Demand, Victor Demanet, Selçuk Demirel, Sinan Demirtaş, Mathias Depardon, Susan Derges, Nejad Devrim, Robert Dighton, Nazım Dikbaş, Nanna Ditzel, Otto Dix, Theo van Doesburg, Adrienne Doig, Albrecht Dürer, Gürbüz Doğan Ekşioğlu, Ali Elmacı, Neş’e Erdok, Yael Erlichman, Mengü Ertel, Jean-Bernard Eschemann, Richard Etts, Jan Fabre, Christine Facella, Mark Fairnington, Alexis de la Falaise, David Farrer, Gretchen Faust, Emeric Feher, Mürteza Fidan, Johannes Fischer, Tsuguharu Foujita, Nancy Fouts, Lucian Freud, Pedro Friedeberg, Lee Friedlander, Harriet Whitney Frismuth, Roger Fry, Paul Fryer, Ernst Fuchs, Peter Gabriëlse, Leylâ Gediz, Ingo Gerken, Valeriy Gerlovin & Rimma Gerlovina & Mark Berghash, Augusto Giacometti, Sliz Gillard, Domenico Gnoli, Nan Goldin, Paul Goldman, Dora Gordine, Douglas Gordon, Antony Gormley, Murat Gök, Şakir Gökçebağ, İhap Hulusi Görey, Stephane Graff, Brian Griffin, Ion Grigorescu, Valentine Gross, Aneta Grzeszykowska, Derrick Guild, Ara Güler, Cemal Nadir Güler, James Hague, David Haines, Osman Hamdi Bey, Richard Hamilton, Neil Hamon, Jessica Harrison, Ristyo Eko Hartanto, Vikont | Viscount Francis Hastings, Andrew Hemingway, Seda Hepsev, Léon Herschtritt, Willi Hertlein, David Hockney, Howard Hodgkin, Jane Hoodless, François Houtin, Horst P. Horst, Hannah Höch, Wilhelm Höffert, Carsten Höller, Georges Hugnet, Jean Hugo, John Isaacs, Meltem Işık, Erdal İnci, Nuri İyem, Patrick Jackson, Roxanne Jackson, Arne Jacobsen, Sam Jinks, Oliver Jones, Michael Joo, Orhan Veli Kanık, Massimo Kaufmann, Şahin Kaygun, Clementine Keith-Roach, Mehmet Kısmet, Anselm Kiefer, Giorgio Kienerk, Frederick John Kiesler, Gustav Klimt, Hengki Koentjoro, Oskar Kokoschka, Helmut Kolle, Isidore Konti, Füreya Koral, Angelika Krinzinger, Uno & Osten Kristiansson, Barbara Kruger, Jonathan F. Kugel, Burhan Kum, Alicja Kwade, Félix Labisse, Julien Landa, Mikhail Fedorovich Larionov, Mogens Lassen, Konrad Adolf Lattner, Alican Leblebici, Gonzalo Lebrija, Tim Lee, Gabriel Lekegian, Georges Lemmen, Michael Leonard, Rachel Lewis, Roy Lichtenstein, Jacopo Ligozzi, Robert Longo, Sarah Lucas, Oliver Lynch, Catherine MacDiarmid, Daniel Maclise, Susie MacMurray, Franziska Maderthaner, Cathleen Sabine Mann, Sandra Mann, Robert Mapplethorpe, Marcel Mariën, Alberto Martini, Pietro Marussig, Alexander Massouras, Angus McBean, Serge Mendjisky, Luiz Philippe Carneiro de Mendonça, Théo Mercier, Constantin Meunier, Adolph de Meyer, Guillermo Meza, Fabien Mérelle, Nino Migliori, Harland Miller, Arno Rafael Minkkinen, Pierre Molinier, Christiaan de Moor, Polly Morgan, Eadweard Muybridge, Peter Simon Mühlhäußer, Renate Müller, Ishbel Myerscough, Félix Nadar, Harry Napper, Graham Nash, Bruce Nauman, Jesús “Bubu” Negrón, Hylton Nel, Marc Newson, Helmut Newton, Nicholas Nixon, Felix Nussbaum, Evie O’Connor, Harold Offeh, Kelvin Okafor, Francesco Olivucci, İrfan Önürmen, Ferhat Özgür, Şener Özmen, Ceylan Öztrük, Christopher Page, Christodoulos Panayiotou, Verner Panton, Pierre Paulin, Pavlos (Dionyssopoulos), Freya Payne, Robert Peary, Evan Penny, Charlotte Perriand, Gaetano Pesce, Atilla Galip Pınar, Pablo Picasso, Patricia Piccinini, Ernest Pignon-Ernest, Isidore-Alexandre-Augustin Pils, Julie Pochron, Gilles-Henri Polge, Serge Poliakoff, Gio Ponti, Stephen Powers, Mario Prassinos, Marcel Proust, Glen Pudvine, Sheng Qi, Roland Rainer, Nâzım Hikmet Ran, Philippe Ramette, Man Ray, Maurice Ray, Ilya Repin, Stephen Reusse, Gerhard Richter, Gerrit Thomas Rietveld, T.H. Robsjohn-Gibbings, Laurent Roch, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Clifford Ross, Jacob van Rozelaar, Julie Rrap, François Ruegg, Thomas Ruff, Paul Rumsey, Necla Rüzgar, Anıl Saldıran, Jamie Salmon, Stuart Sandford, Sandeep Sangaru, SANTISSIMI (Antonello Serra & Sara Renzetti), Hrair Sarkissian, Salomon-Léon Léonard Sarluis, Napoleon Sarony, Achille van Sassenbrouck, Nina Saunders, Olga Saviç, İlhan Sayın, Josef Scharl, Mario Schifano, Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, Ole Schwalbe, Turhan Selçuk, Joan Semmel, SENA, Aleksandr Serebriakov, Erinç Seymen, Farkhondeh Shahroudi, Cindy Sherman, Sedat Simavi, Aaron Siskind, Sandy Skoglund, Carolein Smit, Ludwig Otto von Sonnenburg, Jo Spence, Léon Spilliaert, Victor Spinski, Bernard André Steiner, Adrien Steüer, Holly Stevenson, Kerry Stewart & Ana Genoves, Vladimir Feodorovitch Stozharov, Mircea Suciu, Gerald Summers, Edward Sutcliffe, Attila Szűcs, Yaşam Şaşmazer, Ferdinando Tacca, Nevhiz Tanyeli, Sam Taylor-Johnson, Antoni Tàpies, Hale Tenger, Cansu Terzibal, Herbert von Thaden, Michael Thonet, Wolfgang Tillmans, Marco Tirelli, İrem Tok, Tip Toland, Nikolay Tolmachev, George Tooker, Roland Topor, Karl Tratt, Nasan Tur, Pierre Turin, Félix Vallotton, Miguel Calumarte Vaquer, Jorge Luis Varona, Joana Vasconcelos, Keith Vaughan, Geza Arpad de Vegh, Claude Verlinde, Una Vincenzo, Lady Troubridge, Bill Viola, Frances Waite, Garth Walker, Andy Warhol, Jonathan Wateridge, Gillian Wearing, Kem Weber, Jean Weinberg, Oscar Wilde, Conor Wilson, Martha Wilson, Paula Wilson, Erin Wozniak, Daphne Wright, Stuart Pearson Wright, Erwin Wurm, Craig Wylie, Cang Xin, Damla Yalçın, Ecem Yerman, David Zink Yi, Pınar Yolaçan, Carey Young, Fahrelnissa Zeid, Monica Zeringue, Brigitte Zieger, Richard Ziegler, Unica Zürn.