Curator: Ali Akay
Artists: Ayşe Erkmen, Seza Paker, Brice Dellsperger, Wang Du, Leyla Gediz
In “On connait la chanson”, an exhibition inspired by Alain Resnais’ 1997 film with the same title, there are 5 artists. Just like the film, these artists are working alone and intersecting, coinciding with each other in some places, journeys exhibitions...They are becoming friends, getting along with each other, eating and drinking together. They are within the human realm. These artists demonstrate an “impersonal singularity”. Although some of them had worked in an intimate way, they have numerous aspects that are moving them away from individuality and thus becoming collective. Songs, chansons, are intrinsically drawing them closer and making them a collective.
Each of these artists ponder on a dimension that is conceptual, spatial and displacing. At the same time, they are open to the world, although they are making and have made intimate works. Furthermore, by opening up to the world, they aren’t producing local works. As in many other films of Alain Resnais, time and place superpose, flashbacks and flash-forwards occur. This is some sort of a hybrid between theater and cinema, decor and the play itself are interconnected.