In this episode of ’74PODCAST Series “Nasıl Bir Yarın?” Art Critic, Author, and Curator Beral Madra talks to Artist and Art Educator Gülçin Aksoy, about the conditions of the artists within the current world order and her foresight upon the future of art production. Below, you can read the English translation of the transcription of this episode which is edited and condensed for clarity.
This episode is in Turkish.
“There is distance, however there is going to be togetherness as well. Planning future-oriented preparations, projects and the matter of finding solutions are going to be grounded in togetherness. – Beral Madra
Narrator: Welcome to ISTANBUL’74’s Podcast series titled ‘Nasıl Bir Yarın?’. In this ’74 Podcast series, we will be exploring together the foresight and expectations of multi-disciplinary creative minds and leaders towards the post-pandemic world outcomes.
Gülçin Aksoy: Hello all. Today I, Gülçin Aksoy, and dear Beral Madra will be having a conversation on what kind of tomorrow we are expecting. To introduce shortly, Beral Madra is a well-known art curator, writer, critique, thinker and a laborer. She is a very valuable colleague who has curated Venice Biennale’s Turkish Pavilion many times. Furthermore, she is an art teacher to all of us and someone we love and respect. To briefly talk about myself, I am Gülçin Aksoy, I am an artist and an academician. I manage the carpet atelier in the Visual Arts Department at the Mimar Sinan Fine Art University. Currently, on top of the current situation of Coronavirus, I am also running as the Head of our Painting Department. Since the beginning I have been present as an artist in the contemporary arts sector, as well as sometimes in the alternative arts. Even though I have established an academician career, I like to produce without separating arts and academy. Following this short introduction, we thought of proceeding to the question that was asked to us… What kind of tomorrow, or future you are expecting? If you would like, let’s start with your words on this issue.
Beral Madra: Dear Gülçin, thank you so much. This will be a valuable conversation for me as well, and I would like to thank the team who has been working on this organization. What you called people working in the arts as ‘laborer’ was a really good expression. Frankly, I really enjoyed this term. I am thinking that today’s conversation is about a question that occupy the minds of everyone globally and locally. The question of what will be happening to the world. If we think of it, the whole world is in a strange and unusual times. Maybe since the Second World War, such an event has never happened. Of course, since then we saw the Hiroshima bombing, big wars such as Vietnam, and events such as the Breakup of Yugoslavia happen, which also led to loneliness, withdrawals, and disrupted the order, but they did not reach to this extent. Now, we are facing a totally different life circumstances, and we are trying to deal with loneliness and anxiety.
Gülçin Aksoy: Yes. At the end of the day, you and I are both present in in the arts as a profession, and we spent our lives working on it. Thus, I would like to narrow the topic and hear your opinions about the arts, state of the artist and production of art throughout these days. What would you think?
Beral Madra: Yes, you are right. As I told before, we are a part of an important system called arts and culture sector. There is a creativity phenomenon in the world, and we are responsible of distributing this creativity to mass audiences. So, in here, you are the producer and I am the distributor. The arts and culture sector is acting as a part of the big capitalist society we live in; which economists like to call ‘zombie capitalism’. I think we have reached a realization right now. Art production is a multifarious and multidisciplinary way of production. It has varieties of classes ranging from visual arts to music, design to craft. You and I are in the Visual department, and within this capitalist society, so far visual arts have had a very prominent place. This is due to the aged we live in being surrounded by visual information instead of verbal. What does visual information and visual productions of you, and of artists like you provoke? It provokes a contrast to the visual production that is outside you, within the world order, which either leads to conflict, resolution or adaptation. Since these visual imageries created by artists allows people to comment, to widen their perception and it provides them with a common communication ground. Especially in this case we are talking about a production that spans across multiple disciplines. This includes photography, painting, sound, installation which is made by various objects, all of these are both a part of the zombie capitalism, or they are standing as a distinctive ground against it.
Gülçin Aksoy: Thank you professor. I believe it is necessary to expand on the state of artists and how they are producing. We are living in very strange times. Now we are behind the screen, but at the first instance we were thinking that all of a sudden everything was going to stop and then it would be back to where we are. Of course, everyone is trying to do something. If you know how to paint, you paint. If you know how to record, you record a video. Meanwhile the wheels of zombie capitalism are turning, and we are all a part of it. Unfortunately, no matter how critical we think of it, we are a part of it. In this current situation, at the beginning, maybe even now, we thought let’s keep going as it is, even if we can’t open the exhibitions, we’ll covert it to online… This is inevitable. But this rises a certain problem. As people, and artists, we still do have to think of ways of producing behind the screens, in our sterile environments. We have to face not only methods of consumption, but also production, and to stop and think about them. This also feels like a big luxury; not doing anything and stopping to think. What will the humankind eat? How will the artist live? What will the artist do? When looked from both perspectives, it is a situation that blows in our hand, but especially these days making what we know is something that holds us strong. Thinking about this change is an important thing. It is something very strange that happens once in a century. Sometimes I say this is all that I needed! Thinking of this, should we extend our habits, norm or should we become a part of the change? Are our post-pandemic expectations ‘let’s go out, the virus is over? Let’s open our exhibitions, let’s go back to normal… but we have these problems before there was a pandemic. We only faced them now. They just occurred to us. We can talk lots about this professor, please go ahead.
Beral Madra: Really… As people who produce within Turkey’s circumstances and as people who project this production to the society, we have a history. And this history builds a memory. An event memory. When we look at the history, people have made very important events. Especially from the second end of 20th century, contemporary art productions in Turkey have held an important place in international movements. Our artists can attend Biennale’s, and it seems like what the system has done is enough. Even though globalization and the separation between primary and secondary countries being eliminated, Vienna has a different system in its east than it’s west. When thinking about our system, there is a difference from the mentioned systems of course. They have freedom of speech enabled by a developed democracy. Either way, there is a unity right now. This unity is because of Coronavirus and is about where the cultural sector will head, what kind of solutions there will be found. What is uniting us now is the reality. The whole world is facing a reality.
Gülçin Aksoy: I would like to add, isn’t this reality after a reality?
Beral Madra: Yes. When did this arise? From 2016 to our day there has been an order after reality. This is when all the people in the world accept to change this reality in their interest by intervening with politics and economics, while the mass and mostly laborers suffer from it. We are talking of the beginning of Zombie capitalism, which is a multi-brotherhood after reality. They get along very well. Now the whole world faces one reality. What is this?
Gülçin Aksoy: Surviving.
Beral Madra: Yes, yes. It has come upon us that you either survive or to change this order. Let me tell this as well, the area that we live in, the east of Vienna, is the location of big changes, wars and massacres that took place since the beginning of the 20th century. This still continues to our day. All this is based to a petroleum crisis. But what did the Coronavirus do? It said ‘stop’ to petroleum. Humanity couldn’t but Coronavirus reseted petroleum industry. This is particularly very funny for me. Coming back to our point, how do we preserve the system that we live in? How do we fix it?
Gülçin Aksoy: Or how do we transform?
Beral Madra: Yes, how do we transform? We have to calculate these. It seems now that like we are doing, everyone is using online to try continuing their production. This is a good solution for me. It is a way of communicating. Essentially, this communication has already begun. As you know Gülçin, internet has contributed hugely to the artistic environment.
Gülçin Aksoy: Of course. Of course.
Beral Madra: We know through the internet people can promote themselves, open websites, get in touch, and do networking. We know that this is a good solution. We already have the experience. Don’t we? We can hold a seminar for the whole world, show our work and create an online exhibition. Putting this though aside and moving to the other one, how will these producers and laborer’s make a living? Do you know what happened in Germany?
Gülçin Aksoy: The Berlin senate gave the artists in the city 5000€ each. This took place in other cities as well, but Berlin was the most specific.
Beral Madra: Yes. All of the states did this. As a matter of fact, Holland will do it as well, maybe even Denmark. This is due the approach of Europe againt investing public money on the cultural sector is way different. Not like ours. There is no political intervention to the sector. Unlike us, where the public funding of arts is very limited, barely existing. What have we got? We are supported by the private sector investment opportunities on their contribution. At the end of the day, the Biennale’s held at the Anatolia, you said we had a couple, they were all funded by private funds. We need to clearly point this out. Later on, collationers have started to establish their own collection. Of course, when compared to the amount of production, collectioners are very less. There are not enough collectors to response to this production.
Gülçin Aksoy: Additionally, international collectors could not be active in Turkey. No matter the art fairs.
Beral Madra: Yes. This means that there was a nonefficient system, and now we got rid of it. But what is the system that is ahead of us?
Gülçin Aksoy: Currently, it is important to rethink of the way we are producing and consuming. As an artist as well. But the first most important thing is to survive, and to live. We are sitting in our house and spending money on nothing besides food and drink, but they are people who can’t. So, I won’t be talking about the the romanticized idea of sitting in our house. Not like we are doing what we couldn’t, or how good we are. Meanwhile we can sit and do activities, some people have to really work. There is always to sides to this. It is due to their work that we can go out and buy groceries. There is no way for artists to fulfill their primary needs, especially if it doesn’t belong to the mainstream. As a teacher working at a public university, I know that my students who are working to make a living have no way of getting in those particular clubs. There are lots to discuss here, and these have been here before the pandemic. Now we are facing artists, especially if they are mainstream, who are totally dependent on the thought of the collectioner, which is really sad. Thank god for collectors, but they are very stuck to their comfort zone, going with famous artists, which are really good, or artists in a particular club. They explored what is already established and saw nothing else. This was the same before the pandemic. When you look at it today, you can see an elitist environment in each digital platform formed. I think strictly that these corporations should stop, and take a look at themselves, question why they are moving in such safe grounds, and to broaden their possibilities when transform into the digital age of today accordingly. Overall, an artist that depends on the collectioner with or without wanting has to produce according to the art market, and to survive from it.
Beral Madra: Do you mean these circumstances effect the quality, concept and the notion of the production?
Gülçin Aksoy: I think it definitely does professor. We have suddenly started seeing lots of objects. Doesn’t it effect it? It is a two-way situation. There is an artist who is trying to survive, and as you said, there are the rules and competition of the zombie capitalism. Dragging each other down, working on solely one’s portfolio within an organization, and not showing attention to others. For instance, we have lots of lovely museums and arts organizations. We have been criticizing the White cube for a long time along with modernism. But I think now White galleries are cute. In another words, they are saying I will invest in strong assets. They do not take risks or other paths. It is bad to be stuck on this situation. The contractors get public money, the grocers get public money, even if little, but the artist does not stand a chance. Discussions of these were already made, I hoped people would write and draw about this, but it was forgotten. The rights of artists, their survival, insurance, living circumstances were all forgotten as well. They were discussed at one point. We need to support the artist with public money in this geography as well. The hard efforts of artist extend even to the quarantine where people are surviving by looking at, watching the work we created. So even someone who has no interest in art has a relation to it. Because the images that they see on pages, in between them, always has a connection to art.
Beral Madra: Dear Gülçin, what you have all been saying are the dark and exclusive parts of our system. Of course, we went through these. They have been spoken about in the multiple conferences, seminars we held and were even included in written reports. Finally, we had a meeting held with the Borough of Istanbul as unions, to draw them a blueprint and guide them. A group was formed to handle the case. Believe me, all these situations you were talking about were discussed within the group. We gave important information and insight to the government on how to direct their public funds to the arts sector. I don’t know if they will listen or not. As someone who has been in the arts sector for a long time, I know that there are at least five to six of these reports standing in the archives of the Ministry of Culture. These are not just words, we did these, we showed them examples and what production has led to in these examples. However, to speak of the devil, the artistic circle, meaning the artists, curators, critics professors, cannot unionize against this. There are two main unions. One of them is USBD artist union, the other one is …. These two unions are actually two very important tools. They are two tools that will be helpful in public money being invested towards arts, but unfortunately, they cannot be active enough. There is the Architect Room, sendicates for designers, and other profession associations. As soon as the quarantine ends, artists and artistic professionals should unite and form associations. Only those associations can push the local government to invest their public funds. This is what I can suggest right now. As the second thing, our relationship with Europe is really important. This is due to Europe having a cultural system that finds responses and solutions to the problems you mentioned. This tried to reach us before. If you can remember, from the mid 90’s up until 2012 we were partnering with all of the public organizations of Europe and doing projects with them. Even during Istanbul 2010 Europe Cultural Capital where hundreds of people got to do projects with public funds. So, Turkey has already experienced what to do, how to move forward with public funding.
Gülçin Aksoy: Yes, that raises a question for me. You are very right, we did have an experience with the public area but due to the governmental and civil society ties being weak, we never could form an artist’s association. We tried, but we couldn’t. But this doesn’t mean that we are not going to work on it. We have to. Yes, they did collaborate with the European Union in projects in order for us to improve our public funding mentality, and I have taken part in some of them, but I think I think the standards, and expectations sent to us were always faulty. We did not challenge and develop these standards; we were always tied to them. Once our relationship with the European Union got damaged, we were further shut down and unavailable to participate.
Beral Madra: Unfortunately. However, if there were to be statistics of it, a big fall would be seen. It is obvious that there is a decrease in Turkish artists that are active, hold events globally. With the deprivation of our political relationship with the European Union, these kinds of events started to dramatically decrease.
Gülçin Aksoy: Of course, from now on, this can only be achieved digitally.
Beral Madra: Yes, it can, but another problem will occur. There will be a strict probation on travelling. Probably how they give visas and travelling circumstances will be very different. Especially young artists, they have a blocked path in this way. There should be a better unionization to prevent this. For instance, there should be projects developed focusing on sending artists abroad. Maybe there will be no art fairs left. In art fairs, artists used to sell and gain some income, but now this will not take place easily. I’m not sure if you know but there are online auctions taking place constantly right now. These include historic artefacts as well as contemporary art. Of course, I do not know how the artist profits here, but maybe they do get the portion of income that they deserve.
Gülçin Aksoy: Like for me, I was never deep inside the market as an artist, I was always in the alternative side. I am not saying this in order to praise myself, but this freedom was enabled by my academician income. Of course, there are two sides to this. It is not at all easy being both an academician and an artist. It has a weight to it. For instance, as an artist I always got to plan my own exhibitions, open them. It’s an amazing feeling. Maybe you would remember, I did a show in Galata Rum School. I financed it from my paycheck, dealt with debts, and put effort in to build. But why did I do it? I don’t know. Probably because I don’t know how to do something else. You feel like you have to, and then you do it by yourself. It does not have a monetary, or any kind of outcome.
Beral Madra: Actually, the outcome is this, you are helping this country democratize. Your production enables an epistemological peak. Believe me there are many other artists like you who are opening their own exhibitions with what they have saved. Or there are some main galleries that raise their income from the sale of artworks, and they enable the artist to properly exhibit their work. So, there are some foundations laid, and a support system formed via sponsorship.
Gülçin Aksoy: I wouldn’t know because I never had a sponsor.
Beral Madra: But of course, as I said, first of all there is an elitist situation. Secondly, we need certain systems in order to reach these sponsorships. Sponsors should give attention to events that are held in the arts and culture sector. How many of the sponsors do this in Turkey? There are examples, but not enough. Because they are facing a huge production here. This production is an endless production. There are many arts institutions in the Anatolia, where lots of art graduates hustle to attract attention to themselves. Of course, Turkey is a huge country, the population is excessive. The youth within this population is also huge. There is a big mass that want to work in design and art sector. So, as soon as these days pass, the inevitable solution is to reach out to the local organizations, government and political parties to push them towards this change. We have to find methods that are persuading and pushing them. However, the primary thing to do is establish an association that is very active. I really care about this.
Gülçin Aksoy: Of course.
Beral Madra: How do we proceed? Like I said, even before Coronavirus we reached out to the state, asked for a workshop to be formed. The outcomes from this workshop was decided. Now, we should push them to take action on the outcomes. You said very clearly in the beginning of our conversation, we are laborer’s. Huge visual and conceptual labors. This production is not one of goods. They should understand this. That the product is not a good, but rather a service that will help Turkey’s democratization and modifying capitalism to serve the public. It should be supported in this way.
Gülçin Aksoy: Yes. One other thing is that if we get to exit our houses, we will not go out to the same world. Our efforts to return to the same exact world is nonsense. I think waiting to produce the same way would and having the same expectations would be a mistake. We are probably going to exit our house and step in to a whole another world. I am sure that everyone did enter a confrontation stage, even if what they produce didn’t’ change. This is due to us facing loneliness before anything else, but we can share our loneliness via screens now. We will either acknowledge the value of sharing, pursue artistic egos or ignore the artistic productions, which most people are surviving with right now. This includes people who don’t work in the arts sector. Maybe once we are out, we will also confront the digital world and data. For instance, I have an exhibition that we just couldn’t open. It is ironically called ‘Touching’. This was because the exhibition we could not open was based on touching. Now should we make this online or not? There are issues such as the exhibition being about actually touching, finding the appropriate ways to curate it online, or being able to move through data in digital environments. That is why, once the pandemic is over, we will not step into the same world.
Beral Madra: That is very clear. What you just said. There is an issue of time and place. Time will evolve into something else in this current case. For example, time passed in our homes seem very long. Within this long period of time, maybe it is easier to discipline ourselves and move to a more disciplined stage of production. But I believe the system in Turkey will stop and think. It is already thinking, and our conversation is contributing to it. A lot of people like us think the same why and are trying to reflect this to audiences. The positive aspect of this is that online can reach to broader audiences. Someone that is not close to you can also learn, hear about these things. I think this was a very valuable time to learn, at the end we are sitting in front of our computers and using our time to learn things carefully.
Gülçin Aksoy: Hopefully.
Beral Madra: What did Turkey do in order to educate, occupy their children? They inclined them toward arts and culture, educating them about museums and galleries they have never saw before through the internet. Maybe once they are out, they will actually take them to these places. Or the kid will say I want to go there.
Gülçin Aksoy: Yes, this is the positive side of course.
Beral Madra: Yes, it is. I want to point out to another positive outcome. Now there is a loneliness, but in the sector of arts and culture we are not alone. This is due to every country living the same problems with Turkey, within the culture sector all around the world. Then what happens? Unexpected unities globally.
Gülçin Aksoy: I truly agree with this professor. Not only in art. When this first happened, my initial reaction was ‘Okay, we are going through something really bad. But we are not alone. The whole world is living it with us.
Beral Madra: Yes, exactly. Even though there is a certain distance, there is a unity as well. Future planning, solution finding, and future projects will be all made together. Models will be found. Those models will be utilized by everyone.
Gülçin Aksoy: Yes. Maybe this is the first time it was noticed. We are all in the same level.
Beral Madra: Probably there are few more months to see. We will have to take care to live in distance and of our health, while continuing our productions. I have had the chance to be a consultant of a very good investment. It is an artist community in Yeniköy called Gate 27. Lots of artists came here and will keep on coming. I believe investments like these are important because it helps us secure our international relations and maintain them. I hope the government and organizations will not disregard these problems and will try to support them.
Gülçin Aksoy: Yes, before anything else the insurance, living and health circumstances, of the artist should be secured.
Beral Madra: That is very important. We belong to the working class. We have insurance. We need change but we can request it only after we assemble an art profession association. The level of income and insurance we receive should all be re-evaluated.
Gülçin Aksoy: Yes. Yes.
Beral Madra: If you want let’s end it here. Let’s not make people lose their minds in front of their computer screen. Hoping to meet you in future exhibitions, films. Meanwhile we will continue our work and help Turkey to develop and widen its horizon.
Gülçin Aksoy: Hopefully. I hope everyone stays safe and happy. Goodbye.