SPACES BETWEEN SPACES

By ADNAN YILDIZ

In Spielberg’s movie, “Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull”, there is a short conversation between the spooky character of the story, Oxley (John Hurt), and Indy Jones (Harrison Ford):

I.J.: Where'd they go? Into space?

Prof. ‘Ox’ Oxley: No. Into the space between spaces.

This is not out of blue, since the most fascinating motif of this episode of the legendary movie series is the architectural transformation of the hidden temple, which is produced with the latest visual effect technologies; specifically the way the hidden temple is transformed into a spaceship leaving an apocalyptic scene behind as if nothing has happened or everything has ended… I would like to borrow this image for describing Ayşe Erkmen’s work: Erkmen does not only investigate contemporary forms of spatial relationships and new forms of spatial perception; but she also creates spaces between spaces.

Her focus possibly promises an alternative transition between/within spaces; no matter which form of medium she chooses—video, sculpture or installation—she always deals with where we are, from which point we look at things, and the context/ground of the exhibit as her main statement. Titled Ayşe Erkmen—Weggefährten (Travel Companions) her retrospective show at Hamburger Bahnhof - Museum für Gegenwart - Berlin is on view through January, providing an opportunity to the Berliners and other passers-by to experience diverse levels of perception regarding space, time, movement, and image.

Even before this retrospective at Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin has been living with Erkmen’s work for quite a while. Since 1994, the façade of an apartment, which is situated on the lively Oranienstrasse in Berlin-Kreuzberg, has been the showcase for an installation of the end syllables of the Turkish “-mış, -miş…” tense, cut out of black plexiglass. Erkmen's gigantic pieces that represent various possible narrations of Turkish grammar—when they are added after verbs—are installed over the very concrete stones of the building. Since the title of the installation is On the House, it can be seen as a way of getting into a relationship with a context through a specific site that could bring up some unspeakable aspects of the space but does not have to provide an inevitable reading. The piece is openly waiting for anyone who will see it or ignore it.

During one of her interviews, Erkmen mentioned that the installation caught mostly the eyes and attention of Turkish people who live there or pass by every day. In the beginning of the process, the installation was supposed to stay only for a month and a half but later people who lived in the residential building wanted to keep the installation until the next refurbishment. Erkmen reflects that the audience is free to think about the piece and to get out of it whatever they want. Likewise, how the work is going to survive also should not be only decided by the artist but also by the people who have it in their everyday life.

Being known as one of hot spots of the Turkish-Kurdish community in Berlin, the district of Kreuzberg—and especially this particular street— (near to Kottbusser Tor or as teenagers call it, Kotty) has a lively café culture where you can see a wide range of lifestyles. Turkish men sit together drinking tea or coffee and play the Turkish game Okey whereas gay and lesbian couples sip cappuccino right across the street. Fans of a football club come together in a café—also named after their favorite team. The street is vibrant with people socializing and enjoying their social life. Each place has its own style, menu, fashion, customers and way of life. The end syllables mış, miş, muş, mişiz, yormuşuz, mişsin could be understood as a way of telling stories about you, me, us, them or those—anyone who is part of our social life—and can all together create an invisible public in our minds like a sort of structure that can be best explained as patterns of meta-cognition or steps to hell.

In this context, it is a good idea to remember Mikhail Bakhtin’s The Problem of Speech Genres that deals with the difference between Saussurean linguistics and language as a living dialogue (which can be also conceptualized as translinguistics). Bakhtin distinguishes between literary and everyday language, arguing that genres exist not merely in language but rather in communication. According to Bakhtin, genres have primarily been studied only within the realms of rhetoric and literature, but each discipline draws largely on genres that exist outside both rhetoric and literature. The extra-literary genres have remained largely unexplored. Bakhtin makes the distinction between primary genres and secondary genres. Primary genres comprise those words, phrases and expressions that are acceptable in everyday life; various types of text—such as legal or scientific texts—characterize secondary genres. Through her approach, Erkmen reminds us of Bakhtin’s emphasis on the hidden agenda of the language; of course she does not indulge in a theory of genres from this point but creates an archeological study on the grammar of the language in a context that is open to any discussion regarding migration politics, integration and democracy.

How everyday politics/reality are fictionalized and narrated in Turkish (as possible forms of language) and in Kreuzberg (in a multi-cultural context) through different circles is metaphorically characterized by a minimalist intervention; leaving the Turkish words (which are not even words themselves, but elements of Turkish grammar) in the air and alone for passers-by. Through jokes, exaggerations, humor and gossip, identities and profiles are reproduced in conversations on the street day and night. That is why Erkmen’s installation of end syllables (specific forms of Turkish grammar), which do not exist in German as narrative tenses make another cultural channel visible and accessible in the middle of everyday chaos. Through this channel Erkmen enters into a reflexive dialog with something that reminds us of a phenomenon, which is known as the Chomsky hierarchy.

The controversial American writer, Noam Chomsky, has investigated various kinds of formal languages on the basis of their capacity to capture key aspects of human language. Chomsky hierarchy separates formal grammars into classes, or groups, with increasing expressive power, i.e. each successive class can generate a broader set of formal languages than the one before. Chomsky argues that modeling some aspects of human language requires a more complex formal grammar (as measured by the Chomsky hierarchy) than modeling others. For example, while regular language is powerful enough to model English morphology, it is not powerful enough to model English syntax. That channel is the synthesis of linguistic fragility and narrative difference of a culture, which exists in another one—albeit in another context.

At this point we can develop a comparative reading of Erkmen’s work referring to the Danish artist, Jen Haaning: Haaning broadcasted jokes in Turkish (and also in Arabic but using another medium) over a loudspeaker in the main square in Copenhagen. According to Jennifer Allen, the Turkish Jokes (1994) and Arabic Jokes (1996) are enjoyed by Turkish and Arabic speaking immigrants in Europe; their laughter connects them while cutting them off from the native speakers of their adoptive countries who cannot understand why they are laughing.

In comparison to Haaning, Erkmen’s work is conceptual and minimalistic regarding the artistic approach that shapes the form of installation whereas Haaning triggers an open ended process that can be also seen as a performative research on how the public space is or isn’t represented by minor identities in that cultural context and that a sound installation might make the community or other possible identities more visible (or not), it might create an audience (or not). As an installation it is highly political through the way it conceptualizes its audience. In my opinion Haaning’s piece is designed to be completed through its audience, his work needs a process and an audience in order to process its statement. Erkmen’s installation prefers to be alone and formalistic in order to retain its conceptual power. Erkmen’s installation is not only about the grammar or the effect of syllables separated from the language, but also about the relation between form and space.

We can begin to review Erkmen’s Hamburger Bahnhof exhibition by first looking at her intervention to the façade of the museum building. Erkmen again transforms the façade of Hamburger Bahnhof, but this time her point of reference is directed to the notion of time. Her intervention makes the clocks of the building look as if they have been sketched by a giant red pencil, scratched into the façade with red blood. With a simple gesture, she delicately plays with the notion of time and its relationship with the institution and organization. In relation to how Virilio conceptualized time and speed (if speed used to be the essence of war, today speed is war) Erkmen’s installation points at time as the main element of the social determinator in relation to the history of the building, which used to be a railway station. In his writings which he has published since 1976, Virilio comes to three basic conclusions: a) whoever is seen has been killed; b) because media undermine time and space, flood the body and make it superfluous, they have lost credibility since information is not mediated any longer, but is immediate; c) no time for control, filtering or double checking remains. Information is disinformation, and media are everywhere and nowhere at once and allow no resistance. With her red signature-like gesture, Erkmen shoots the time, space, space-time—bang bang—or in essence she kills modernity by going back to its ultimate reference.

Like an elementary school teacher, as if marking a student’s homework, Erkmen uses a sort of resemblance which reminds us of “the red pen”. This is a formal gesture, and rather than an institutional criticism it should be taken as a formalistic gesture that would also function at any social and cultural level such as in context with Berlin; a post-war city, that has been painfully industrialized and gradually transformed into a contemporary metropolis. Erkmen’s gesture of cancelling the access to a clock on a museum also refers to Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar’s masterpiece The Clock Setting Institute (1963) which is about fictional characters who fail to catch up with the rapid change of their times within the nostalgic aura of mourning for the destruction of traditions under harsh Westernization.

Here it might be crucial to define the term “site-specific” in terms of Erkmen’s approach; the term is often used for any work that is permanently attached to a particular location, context, site or space. However, in her work it certainly indicates a context-sensitive historicity starting from a formal link to its appearance or space. Site-specificity generally addresses works that are conceived for a special place, a certain context; for instance a street, a building or a landscape etc. And a site-specific work is organically connected to its environment. In Erkmen’s work, it is mostly the context that provides the conditions for its functioning but the perception processes through its meaning on the surface.To specify her notion of site-specificity, Berlin based art-critic Travis Jeppesen quoted Gertrude Stein: there is no there there…

When you walk inside the museum to see Erkmen’s installation, first you have to pass through the metal detector, which originally did not exist and is actually an installation by the artist that was originally exhibited at the Porticus in Frankfurt. The detector has no security function; the viewer is already in the museum, and you generally see this kind of metal detectors at the entrance of shopping malls, parks, museums or galleries, but not inside when moving from one show to another.

Referring to the control mechanisms that have a growing impact on our everyday lives after 9/11, Erkmen’s piece creates an obligation, which means that you have to smile at the museum guard and let the detector check you when you are passing through. You have to get into a social contact with the museum, with the institution in terms of public security.

Fredric Jameson described pastiche as blank parody (Jameson, 1991), especially with reference to the post-modern parodist practices of self-reflexivity and inter-textuality. Rather than being a jocular but still respectful imitation of another style, pastiche in the postmodern era has become a "dead language", without any political or historical content, and so has also become unable to satirize in any effective way. Whereas pastiche used to be a humorous literary style, it has, in postmodernism, become devoid of laughter (Jameson, 1991). Erkmen’s detector not only reproduces the situation of being controlled and letting the museum institution be controlled, but also doing this publicly, creating its own queues, social talks and relations. The metal detector is a monumental representation of today’s public space and for me is going to be homage to the “Jameson” pastiche.

On the first floor, you see fluorescent lights which have been hung low from the ceiling. The way they represent and reflect light plays with the notion of institution. Fluorescent light normally looks cold and formal but here through the way Erkmen arranged them the space becomes a stage that the viewer walks through, an absurd experience in an institutional setting comparable to a Kafka story that tells more about bureaucracy and institution with a gesture of cacophony. It is a reference which would make sense as part of an architectural space such as a hospital or a school or a government office but here in the museum it looks like something from Star Wars. As this sort of lighting is mostly used in public buildings, fluorescent lights reminds us of the way public space is defined in terms of neutralizing the space with white light and white walls. The way these lights have been installed creates an absurd comedy; it breaks the cold atmosphere and draws a panorama of lights in the air. If you like, you can touch them, walk between them or look at them from a distance while they all together create a painting (made of light) in the air.

Continuing through the exhibition, we find cut-out layers on the carpet or more clearly, Erkmen cropped the carpet. By showing the underlying pattern of the floor she makes a statement out of form and ground in the space. Like the flag, that adorns the roof of Hamburger Bahnhof, “Ayşe Erkmen” is written on ribbons like a label or a brand. The ribbons are hung from the ceiling and look like a green waterfall. This piece works as a signature, which has been reproduced over and over again through a fabric, which is mostly used for decoration, celebration and covering.

The same installation is repeated on both floors, huge digital prints mounted on two big walls; these two big installations look like billboard advertisements. One of them displays the image of a woman who reaches up from a pool. She is supposed to stand on the shoulders of a man who most probably has been distorted through digital intervention. Like the way Erkmen cuts the shapes and gestures out through physical intervention, here she also repeats her strategy in the virtual by distorting the image and blowing it up to a gigantic monument of an advertisement which does not advertise anything but is de-contextualized.

Ayşe Erkmen (b.1949, Istanbul) graduated from the sculpture faculty of the State Academy of Fine Arts in 1977. She took part in the Istanbul biennales of 1989 and 1995 and was invited in 1993/94 to join the Berlin artists program run by the DAAD.

Numerous solo and group exhibitions in Germany, Sweden and Switzerland (Kuckuck, Kunstmuseum St. Gallen) while she has also contributed to a number of biennales. Besides her much discussed contribution to Skulptur Projekte in Münster 1997, Erkmen caused a stir with her Shipped Ships project in Frankfurt am Main in 2001, conceived for the Deutsche Bank's art series Moment-Temporary Art in Public Space. In 2002 she was awarded the Maria Sibylla Merian Prize of the Ministry for Science and Art of the Hesse state government. Since 1998 she has taught at the University of Kassel and from 2001 until 2005 was appointed professor to the Städelschule in Frankfurt am Main.

The artist lives in Istanbul and Berlin. Ayşe Erkmen’s solo exhibition at Hamburger Bahnhof includes both retrospective elements as well as a site-specific installations—a “path” from the exterior to the interior of the museum. This path leads the visitor through many spaces, eventually arriving at the main exhibition hall where her sculptures, larger installations and film works are on view. The installation comes out of a practice of creating interventions where the viewer is at odds with the surrounding objects. Her minimalist work entices the viewers to have physical reactions to their environment and to be in dialogue with said physicality.

Through interventions and installations—including a work specially created for the façade as a prelude— Erkmen interlinks the various spaces leading to the actual exhibition site on the first floor of the east wing. She creates irritating situations by staging subtle references to the specific conditions of the exhibition site and the metaphorical associations it evokes. Along with sculptures and large installations, her film oeuvre is shown.

image: theflamingoandtheboy, from the installation: Ayşe Erkmen, On the House, 1994