Check in 3 -Martian Tabakov – Collect Gallery Istanbul

CHECK IN

Curator Marcus Graf

Georgi Georgiev / Jorrras | 17.05 - 26.05
Sevda Semer | 28.05 - 06.06
Martian Tabakov | 08.06 - 16.06
Kalina Dimitrova | 18.06 - 27.06

Gallery Collect opens its doors with Check-In as a curatorial experiment that goes beyond the form and concept of a traditional art exhibition for reacting to the powerful flux of Istanbul.

Every week, in the main hall of the gallery, one artist is individually displayed in a solo show. At the same time, the other members of the Check-In’s artist list are represented in a sneak preview while they wait for their turn to execute their upcoming solo shows. Furthermore, after the first exhibition of e.g. Jorrras has ended, Kalina Dimitrova takes over the gallery space while works of Jorrras’ will remain on display in the Check-Out section of the exhibition. This spatial transition continues until the end of the whole show. So, a strong flow of artists and artworks characterizes Check-In as its past, present, and future are intermingled through the merge of various vernissages and finissages.

In this sense, Check-In not only introduces Gallery Collect to the local art scene by presenting some of its artists, but also reflects Istanbul’s urban character as well as adapts to the dynamism within its cultural fabric.

CHECK IN 3 | 08.06-16.06

Martian Tabakov

Check-In (3) presents three-dimensional works from two different series as well as a group of drawings by Martian Tabakov. Born on the 7th of March in 1992 in Sofia, the artist works mainly in the fields of sculpture, sound object, drawing and installation. After graduating from the Department of Sculpture at the National Academy of Arts, he still works and lives in Sofia.

Tabakov’s oeuvre is based on abstracted figurative sculptures as well as on totally abstract sculptures that can be used by the spectator to create sound. While the figurative works refer to the human body, the abstract pieces are made for becoming part in a participatory act with the audience. These pieces cause an appealing mixture of visual and sonic experience. The figurative sculptures shift between being shape and form by standing at the threshold between reflecting a given body and becoming an autonomous, even new being. Martin Tabakov successfully merges figuration with abstraction to create sculptures that go beyond our traditional notion of the human body for revealing alternative insights in its physical and philosophical meaning.

In his exhibition at Collect.Gallery, also drawings are presented. Tabakov’s minimalist approach to the field of drawing, in which the depiction of abstracted and deformed human figures prevails, contains another poetic yet critical view on the human body, which harmonically corresponds with the displayed three-dimensional works.