Places categories: IVAM Centre Julio González

The What is Our Home? exhibition grew out of an interest in striking up a dialogue, in forging a connection and affinity between the collections of IVAM and of MAXXI, Rome. With this goal in mind, we have brought together a group of works from the collection of the Italian museum (Ilya & Emilia Kabakov, Francis Alys, Jana Sterbak, Mario Merz, Alfredo Jaar, Kara Walker, William Kentridge, Atelier Van Lieshout and Teddy Cruz) with some major works from the IVAM collection (Bruce Nauman, Gabriele Basilico and Richard Hamilton). Their common ground is a concern with the inhabited and social space, a questioning of the city, the home, the community, or the personal sanctuary.

The exhibition seeks to understand how spaces mark time and are linked to a place’s memory. We present a group of works and large installations that seem to be an accumulation of places with varying degrees of closeness and disconnectedness, and which draw attention to the fragmentation of the human experience, to the inability to comprehend the social whole and to the imperfection of knowledge.

In addition, What is Our Home? wishes to talk about those people who feel like strangers no matter where they are, as they come to feel that their existence unfolds, somewhat anxiously, in cities that they no longer recognize and in urban spaces in which they have no place or space. And so, in the exhibition we find a group of ideas and projects that understand architecture as a structure that condenses a physical world; as the desire to build a place (a haven, a sanctuary, a house, a home…) defined by the people that use it, as if it were a (more or less free) version of ourselves.

‘This exhibition will examine the changes that took place in sexuality and morality in Europe in the period between the two world wars. During that time, one can observe the impact of conservatism on laws and the persistence of religious mores. At the same time, it is imperative to bear in mind the aftereffects of the Great War on the general population. The social crisis in which European societies were caught up and the fierce zest for life following such a dark period prompted the rise of forms of behaviour in individuals and groups that diverged from the dominant order. This newfound freedom in customs found a fertile terrain for expression in art. The use of photography facilitated the exposure of the body and nudity but other mediums—drawing, printing, painting, sculpture—were also used to capture this nonconformity with the moralizing norm. These expressions of freedom flourished more often in big cities like Berlin and Paris. That being said, censorship continued to be exercised and ongoing social and legal control was reflected in all kinds of repressive situations. The rise to power of Fascism and totalitarianism (Germany, Italy, Spain, Soviet Union) brought an end to this vision of a new society.’ J.V. Aliaga.

The exhibition includes over 180 artworks divided into seven sections: Cultures of the Body; The Bloomsbury Group and Other Aesthetics; Trauma and Desire; Under this Mask, Another Mask (Sous ce masque, un autre masque); The Depths of Sex; Salacious Times and Virile Totalitarianisms, featuring a range of drawings, paintings, prints, photographs, sculptures and films by more than 45 artists such as Hans Bellmer, Romaine Brooks, Brassaï, Federico García Lorca, Gluck, Duncan Grant, Hannah Höch, Tamara de Lempicka, Maruja Mallo, Jeanne Mammen, Néstor, Max Pechstein, Gregorio Prieto, Carol Rama, Rudolf Schlichter, Sascha Schneider, Suzanne Valadon, Ethel Walker and Gerda Wegener, as well as a selection of books, journals and other documentation from the period.

Warning: sexually explicit images

This is the first major solo show by Gülsün Karamustafa (Ankara, 1946) in Spain. And an excellent opportunity to familiarize ourselves with the work of arguably the most internationally acclaimed living Turkish artist and one of the most unique voices in contemporary art.

It would be nigh on impossible to understand her work unless we take into account what the city of Istanbul means both for her personal life and her art practice. Istanbul, not just for Turkey but also for the rest of the world, is much more than a metropolis at the crossroads between Asia and Europe, between the East and the East: one might even say that Istanbul is a world in itself.

Historically, Istanbul has always been a cosmopolitan city with a vast cultural and religious wealth; a geographic melting pot that makes it the true antithesis of homogenous culture. The coexistence and exchanges between the many highly different communities in the city have guaranteed the survival of its cultural legacy.

And Gülsün Karamustafa’s practice is solidly grounded in its culture and people, while at once looking outwards to the wider world, making her an artist fully engaged and committed with her time, keenly interested in pushing the envelope of concepts, materials, ideas and artistic spaces. She straddles two worlds (that have often turned their backs on one another) in order to offer us the best of both. She is a key artist in understanding that is no longer possible to conceive human life based on a world of irreconcilable opposites.

As one can see in this exhibition, in her work, Karamustafa teaches us how to open our minds, to be freer, to value those things that often elude us because we are blinded by stereotypes. Her works are like an open window on a virtually unknown world of great wealth.