Beyond The Apparent

BEYOND THE APPARENT:
A Selection from Art Collection of the Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey

“Beyond the Apparent” is an exhibition title. In relation with art historiography, as well as the nature and source of existing information, the exhibition’s selected works from the Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey Art Collection, can also be perceived an archaeological endeavor, a revisiting, or an attempt to experiment the conformity between the apparent and what lies beyond it. The objective of this title is to rethink, over the exhibition of a collection, the fundamental views that determine discussions on modern/contemporary art and art historiography in Turkey, as well as the desire to elucidate the processes rather than glorifying or criticizing certain periods.

The word suret, which carries different meanings such as “appearance, figure, image, representation, duplicate, copy, photograph” or “mode,” corresponds to the apparent and perceived aspect of existence in Islamic philosophy. Siret, on the other hand, defines the invisible, abstract, spiritual state of a person that can be discerned by the five sense, his/her behavior, nature, ethics, and the character that lies beyond the appearance. In this regard, it can be surmised that the desire to revisit a collection as part of an exhibition is connected to the “modern and beyond” appearance of the “1950-2000” exhibition in which the Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey shared its collection with the public in 1994. The basic variables and cornerstones of this relationship constitute the fundamental problematic of the text. Therefore, the central theme behind the text is to question, with a visit from the past to the present, the kind of meaning the Central Bank Collection holds as of the day it was first created and registered, the discussions it proposes, and the place it holds as part of a larger continuum of art history. In addition, rather than making art history, the text aspires to focus on how written and unwritten history is created.