About the work
‘If water could drip from the copper tube...’
Ayşe Erkmen, whose practice and site-specific works are etched in memory, takes her social and physical environment as a starting point and, by repositioning an existing structure in her own style, impels viewers to think about space. Her works, which make spaces experienceable, do not show a concern with conceptualizing a formal language.
Moss Column is five-metre stone column covered by moss. The adjacent copper water tube imitates a hose to bring a measured amount of water to the top of the column to flow down it to produce and feed the moss. Thanks to the continuous leakage of water, the stone gets gradually mossy while the copper develops a green patina as it is oxidized. The air, humidity and temperature become sculptural materials alongside the water, stone and copper as Erkmen juxtaposes familiar and unfamiliar elements of artmaking within one work.
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About the artist
Ayşe Erkmen (b. 1949, Istanbul) graduated from the Department of Sculpture, Mimar Sinan University in 1977. In 1993, she participated in the DAAD International Artist Residency Programme in Berlin. Erkmen worked as the Arnold Bode Professor at Kassel Art Academy 1998–1999, as a lecturer at Frankfurt Städelschule 2000–2007 and at Münster Kunstakademie 2008–2016. Among the international exhibitions Erkmen has participated in are the 2nd, 3rd and 13th Istanbul Biennial; the Turkish Pavilion at the 54th Venice Biennale; Manifesta 1, Shanghai, Berlin, Gwangju, Sharjah, Limerick, Scape, Ichihara, Aichi biennials; and the Folkestone and Echigo-Tsumari triennials. In 2020, she won the prestigious triennial Ernst Franz Vogelmann Sculpture Award, the first woman artist to receive it. She lives and works in Berlin and Istanbul.
For more information, please visit the gallery website: Dirimart
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