BERLIN NOTES

There is a condition in which one can internalize a city with its spaces, energies, memories and even its most transitory smiles, but still remain a stranger, an outsider. In this condition, it may occur to you to be irresponsible and think of alluding to this moment of sharing, by expressing the space in time.

In 1991 my exhibition, ‘’New York Notes and other Footnotes,’’ was made up of a series of works that were related to a city.

But in 2007, while I was in Berlin for an art meeting, very different ways of thinking , feeling, and detecting entered the process, shaping it, so that a new series of paintings emerged. These can be understood almost as if they were developments arising from “notes in a diary.” In other words, they were projected traces of my perceptions of this city. Small paintings, created out of hand-made paper, collages and other, very different materials. Then later, larger paintings on paper emerged out of these. A process of fascination, enriched in its transformation through materials.

When I look back at these works, it appears that even though they were not created with a single, particular concept in mind and are very distinct from each other, taken together they could be read as the “sensibilities of a traveler.”

On the other hand, the process of producing these paintings has transformed them into a language derived from a certain geographical space and a sense of belonging (identity).

One might say that the problematics which I have experienced over the last 40 years, both as aspects of this island and as pivoting around issues of identity, have been shaped by multiple layers of intellectual sensations. Beyond this, however, to break away from agendas that are renewed again and again every day and have now become wearisome, to be able to create fresh and creative conditions in this geography, is another matter.

The exhibition ‘’Berlin Notes’’ is made up of works that have been ready and waiting for the past three years.

Emin Çizenel

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Sidestreets is pleased to announce the opening of Emin Çizenel’s Berlin Notes exhibition on December 15th at 19.00 hours.

The exhibition can be visited at 22 Mahkemeler Önü- Nicosia, from 15 December  2010 through 15 January  2011. (Sidestreets: tel +(90) 392 229 3070, info@sidestreets.org, www.sidestreets.org )

Click onto picture to enlarge.