Projects 2002

Stop for a Moment - Painting as Narrative

5 April - 15 June 2002 at Proje4L, Istanbul Museum of Contemporary Art, Turkey

Painting as narrative - in the sense that is always a two-way street. You have certain capabilities for affecting the stories that are told, but other agents and structures affect them at the same time. It is an interaction between all the participants in the game: artists, works of art, viewers, exhibition venues, and basically all the economic, psychological, political and historical implications of a time and a space-bound context. It is a merry-go-round of situated hermeneutics, where the problem is not how to stop the wheel of interpretations, but how to get into it and how to participate and situate oneself within the process of telling stories.

Stop for a Moment - Painting as Narrative, shown at Proje4L, Istanbul Museum of Contemporary Art, consists of figurative works, with an emphasis on painting's capacity to act as a story - hence, painting as narrative. The works investigate various ways of making particular, private experiences accessible and public.

The position of painting in Turkey is quite similar to the one in the Nordic countries. In these relative peripheries, the popularity of painting is particularly high. Rather than emphasising conservative attitudes related to painting's situation as market commodity or fetish, the exhibition proposes a critical and self-conscious attitude.

The exhibition is a collaboration between NIFCA and Proje4L.
Curators: Kari Immonen and Mika Hannula

For more information and images see:
www.nifca.org/stopforamoment

Stop for a Moment - Painting as Narrative is accompanied by a
64 page full-colour catalogue, including an introductory essay, artists' interviews and illustrations.

Artists in this exhibition:
Vanessa Baird (NO)
Birgir S. Birgisson (IS)
Niklas Engvall (SE)
Robert Lucander (FI)
Elina Merenmies (FI)
Milla Toivanen (FI)
Lene Vaering Jensen (NO)