Think Tank: Şakir Gökçebağ

Galerist is pleased to present ‘Think Tank’, a solo exhibition by Şakir Gökçebağ between January 20 and February 14, 2015. Recognized for his installations transforming ready-made objects that are used in everyday life, Gökçebağ subverts established ways of perception and creates new possibilities of seeing and understanding. The artist detaches objects from their functionality by ways of collection, repetition and deconstruction; thus, turns them into art objects with unique forms.

For his works, Şakir Gökçebağ explores every part of the chosen ready-made in detail.  After countless trials, he designates one final site-specific set up from amongst the dozens of possibilities. Alternatively, at times he is inspired by the space it-self. ‘Think Tank’, the installation which gives its name to the exhibition, is described by the artist as the production of visual thought. In this work, Gökçebağ transforms the metal mesh used in gardens to hold up plants into a visual riddle; thus, revealing his individual pattern of thought.

By ways of collection, repetition and deconstruction, the artist recontextualizes the objects that we define through their functions in everyday life; he makes the viewer perceive them as an absolute gestalt. In his installation titled ‘Pop Art #2’, Gökçebağ uses the contrast of texture, color, meanings and size of the materials. In ‘Firmament’, by stretching white threads inside of a black umbrella, the artist devises a map of the sky with geometric forms. 

‘KL1b’ and ‘KL2a’ from ‘Cuttemporary Art’, which is a series of photographs from installations with fruits and vegetables, will be displayed for the first time at Galerist. Aside from his installations with familiar objects such as wooden clothes pins, hangers, umbrellas, slippers and garden hoses, the exhibition comprises of ‘Horizon 2’, which is an installation with plastic buckets full of water, arranged in a line. 

Influenced by art movements such Fluxus, Minimalism, Bauhaus, Dadaism and Pop-Art, the artist makes novel propositions through poetry, humor, analysis and simplification.