Dirimart

Berke Yazıcıoğlu’s body of work delves into the intriguing interplay between desire and order, exploring a range of social and cultural phenomena. His practice is often in dialogue with various relics of art history, including a notable interest in classical music. His current work offers a captivating exploration of musical themes reinterpreted through visual art practices. European music from the 19th and 20th Centuries being a creative impetus, Berke’s recent work draws inspiration from the likes of Stravinsky and Ravel. He reimagines their masterful musical works as visual explorations, unveiling hidden concepts and augmenting their range of possible interpretation. His project The Rite of Spring is a visual adaptation of Stravinsky’s namesake pagan epic. Berke has reinterpreted the ballet’s plot and musical score as a collection of tapestries woven in silk and chenille. In each panel the orchestration is adapted into geometric patterns and layered with figures that follow the narrative, reinterpreting this musical piece as a visual work. Different colours represent different instruments, and each composition contains a unique arrangement of runes found in Germanic caves. His selection of earlier works revolve around the concept of desire and its complex relationship with order. The juxtaposition of pleasure and order forms the core of his practice. Through his work he skillfully navigates the delicate tension between individual yearnings and civic regulations. His creations serve as a compelling commentary on the human experience, addressing the eternal conflict between personal desire and social limits. He probes the intricacies of desire and order, revealing how the establishment of social norms often necessitates the restriction of individual aspirations.

Berke Yazıcıoğlu, who produces in different mediums such as digital drawing, painting, illustration, and design, examines the situation of voyeurism through the images that are observed through new-generation communication tools. He examines the relations of body, desire, order and the possibilities of figure painting through online tabs. He also emphasizes the new generation positions, postures, and movements that online video dating applications create in our perception. He plays with the image quality of digital tools by using pastel colors and brings the history of queer figure painting to the present. Berke Yazıcıoğlu (b. 1993, İstanbul) received his BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He currently conducts his work in London with the support of the Alexander McQueen Foundation. Also working in the publishing and fashion industries, Yazıcıoğlu carries out collaborations with clients such as The New Yorker, Wallpaper Magazine, Bloomberg Businessweek, Wall Street Journal, Wired UK, Taschen, Selfridges, Hennessy, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Chanel. His solo exhibitions include Nighttime, Dirimart Pera, Istanbul (2023); Ritmo Zeytino X Dirimart, Ritmo Zeytino, Bodrum (2021); Kare Art Gallery, Istanbul (2014); Galeri Artist, Istanbul (2012); Galeri Artist, Istanbul (2010), and the group exhibitions he participated include Dirimart Presents IX, The Stay Warehouse, Izmir (2022); All Else is Far, curator Ceren Erdem, Dirimart, Istanbul (2021); The Design Show, Chicago Art Department, Chicago (2015); SAIC BFA Thesis Show, Sullivan Galleries, Chicago (2015); ARTbash, SAIC Contemporary Practices Department, Chicago (2012). The artist lives and works in London.

Celebrating its 20th year in 2022, Dirimart is more focused than ever on challenging and revitalising the existing gallery model in Istanbul. Founded in 2002 by Hazer Özil with the intent of exhibiting established and emerging artists both from Turkey and around the world in a context conducive to critical dialogue and cross-pollination, the pivotal concern of the gallery’s program is individual and regional differences while fostering cosmopolitanism and collaboration. Dirimart cultivates a program premised on conceptualism, political resistance and intellectual rigour. Located in two distinct locations in Beyoğlu, Dolapdere and Pera, the gallery divides its program between established artists, such as Ayşe Erkmen, İnci Eviner, Canan Tolon, Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Sarah Morris, Anselm Reyle, Jorinde Voigt, Tomokazu Matsuyama, and Karin Kneffel and emerging artists, such as Çiğdem Aky, Çağla Ulusoy, Berke Yazıcıoğlu, and Ebru Duruman. The gallery, through Dirimart and RES Publications (est. 2007), also continues its well-established series of catalogues, artist books and books on art theory.