{CTS} creative thriftshop_Contemporary Istanbul art fair

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CTS is proud to present Power Struggle a provocative presentation of works that begs the public to ask the question- What do we want from our future? What will it look like and how will we participate in it?

Dollar bills, a corporate noose and fetish masks exist amongst images and assemblages that pose the undisguised question- Are we voyeurs in our own modern demise? The five artists featured in Contemporary Istanbul confront the raw conditions of conflict and control through various reactive representations or meditative expressions. Exploring the displacement of personal identity within a collective psyche, the work addresses the modern anxiety that plagues our conflicted present and obscure future.

At one end, through installation and sculpture Guerra de la Paz targets the common nine to five routine as a mask and guise of self-delusion. A noose constructed of silk ties argues a fateful resignation to the self-perpetuated myths of wealth and materialism operating in the name some empty corporate scheme.

Justine Reyes' intimate proximity to a masked subject approaches the interchangeability of identity and the nature of the mask as a transformative and revelatory device. It becomes a tool not only to conceal or disguise, but also to displace, subdue or expose truths or preconceptions that exist beyond surface appearances.

Through an internalized and organic expression, Justine Reyes' yarn installation relays a more subtle translation of the physicality of war. The methodical act of knitting becomes a process for maintaining a sense of control and calm amidst the chaos of uncertainty. Her piece speaks to the magnitude of war in its representation of the passage of time. A simple hand-made material stands in contrast to the immaterial and futile ability to quantify progress and consequence in the timeline of cultural conflict.

Similarly, Ward Yoshimoto's assembled materials create a signal of permanence, and self-consciousness amongst the flux and obscurity of conflict. In Petroleum, Ivana Brenner's oil paint and plastic polymer sculpture exposes the social, commercial and aesthetic values assigned to beauty and commodity. Her delicate materials parallel the crude nature and commercial value of petroleum, while revealing the potential for beauty to be unmasked from a hideous origin.

In the work of Anke Bauer a silver lining and sense of hopeful optimism emerges beyond the calculated constructs of modern life. Her concrete landscapes and distortions suggest a growing divide in communication and connectivity. Nonetheless the picture of an idyllic life conveys a movement and transience towards a future place and time, as indefinable and ambiguous as that destination may be. In contrast to the more combative depictions of control and order, the constructive assemblages retain a possibility of beauty and order to emerge from displacement and obscurity.

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