Sarkis:
au commoncement, le decalage, 2002

DVD
18:38 min, sound, colour
Sarkis


Memory, time, emotion, the personally experienced are the predominant themes of Sarkis’ work. In his carefully thought through and arranged productions, objects and materials turn into trigger mechanisms for moments of experience. This universe can also be found in the three works of the exhibition. In the sound report Beyoğlu – Istanbul from 2002, various sounds of one of Istanbul’s districts of the same name can be heard. Recorded during a walk through the main street Istikal Caddesi, it documents an insight into one of the oldest and most European-like districts of Istanbul. The ringing of the historic Tünel-train, sounds coming from bars, scrap of conversation, street hawkers selling their goods on wheelbarrows, a song by the British band Pet Shop Boys, a Turkish love song, the Darbuka (turkish drum) – a tonal panopticum of the every day life in Istanbul is revealed.

The artist, who was born and grew up in Beyoğlu, refrains from any kind of arrangment of the sound material and thereby intensifies its documenting character. On the video Au Commencement, le decalage (At the beginning, the adjustement), that was also produced in 2002, recordings of a storm over Istanbul can be seen. However, the position of the camera never changes and during the short flash of lightning one can get a glimpse of a terrace and a chair. The Bosporus extends behind the terrace, but it can rather be guessed than actually discerned. The mysterious, frequently attributed to Istanbul, is captured here by means of the recording of a natural phenomenon. According to Sarkis, lightning and thunder have a dialogue with the city. But the natural phenomenon was manipulated and seems to be familiar only at first glance. When one looks at it for the second time it is revealed that first the thunder is heard and then the lightning is seen.

Autel de croyances & utopies (Altar of beliefs & utopies) is an installation consisting of four parts that were built between 1979 and 2001. The main element is a box that – like an altar – is equipped with more than 200 votive pictures from orthodox churches in Armenia and Greece. But the decoration and its storage place only formally refer to a religious context. The alienation of objects and materials is characteristic of Sarki’s work, who thereby wants to refer to a different historico-cultural or sociologically identified level. On the altar there is a book, but, contrary to expectations, it is not the Bible. It is a document by Uwe Fleckner and Sarkis containing a longer text about the artist’s work as well as 42 texts by philosophers like Platon, Sokrates or Derrida on the issue of memory.

The art historian Uwe Fleckner was the first to draw a connection between Sarkis’ work and Aby Warburg’s theory of memory. On the back of the box there is a neon writing forming the sentence »Outside it is snowing.« written in French. On the wall above the box there is a picture frame with postcards. On the left side »Der Traum« can be read in German. These postcards are addressed to Russain avant-garde artists like Alexander Rodtschenko and El Lissitzky. This arrangement illustrates a determining component of Sarkis’ work: the mysterious or concealed is produced by means of the material. Through the facticity a distance is created that turns the reference to other contexts into a silent presence of what is meant.

Text by: Carmen Beckenbach