By Heidi Trautmann

A syncopation generally means ‘a disturbance or interruption of the regular flow of rhythms.... A term used in music for the unexpected. A good title for Emin Çizenel’s exhibition at the ARGO Gallery in Nicosia http://www.argogallery.org/INTRO.html

The best thing I can do is to repeat Emin Çizenel’s own words who can better introduce art work than the creator, the artist himself...

A moment of blindness, deafness, is caused by the breaking of a wave as it passes through the iris, the eardrum. The thread of the wave carries melody and reflection up and down from peak to through. Its thythm is at the same time warp and woof, a texture pierced at every moment by the gaze, but never seen by the eye. Striking the membrane, it echoes, but is not heard. It is felt, but not touched. The sight of this paradox is the sound of syncopation.

Through the space of this exhibition, Emin Çizenel relates the experience of the intellectual and the psychological, and the problematic need for their reconcilliation. The exhibition reconstructs and explores a memory: the ‘status report’, which forms an integral part of it, points, among other things, to space that is slipping from the rural to the urban; the role of society and personal experience in delimiting desire; the psychological and social consequences of transgressing the boundaries of accepted differences; transformative gender concepts; and slippery and conflicting cultural norms and taboos.

Interpreting the implications of the works here leads to a shizophrenic paradox: while the artistic ‘emphasis takes on the form of the subject matter and finds its content, it simultaneously constructs another, desolate and lonely space. As a result, although the subject of the exhibition is derived from the story of an actual historical event, the original context is transfored, leaving only traces of the event and foregrounding an aesthetic of images and sounds.

The exhibition hall is dominated by ‘Gadriye’ the donkey, a female as it is explained by her biography next to the video installation showing a film of her behind with her tail protecting her genitals from flies...or what, that is all that is shown in the video. Offbeat. The painting is annexed by smaller ones, a man’s trousers and three small stools of different height.

 The exhibition still runs until 14 February, 2015

ARGO Gallery,  64E Digeni Akrita Avenue, Nikosia

Monday to Friday 10:00 - 13:00 and 17:00 - 20:00 / Saturday 10:00 - 13:00. The gallery is closed Saturday afternoons and all day Sunday.