ISTANBUL.- SALT presents a new print publication of two separate volumes in Turkish and English, Cengiz ekil: 21.08.1945-10.11.2015, as part of an ongoing effort to revisit and narrate Turkey’s art scene from the second half of the 20th century onwards. Offering an in-depth survey of ekil’s oeuvre, the publication serves as a comprehensive resource, potentially leading to further research endeavours on the artist and his practice.
ekil was born in the district of Bor, Niğde in Central Anatolia. Following his graduation from the Arts-Crafts Department at the Gazi Education Institute in Ankara, ekil went to Paris, where he studied sculpture at the cole nationale suprieure des beaux-arts between 1970 and 1975. Upon his return to Turkey, he was appointed to teach at the Istanbul Atatrk Education Institute. In 1978, ekil settled in Izmir—a city he spent 30 years of his life as an academic and artist, and helped establish a notable contemporary art scene. Detailing his training, professional life, works, and contributions to academia and culture, SALT Research catalogued and digitized ekil’s archive. This long-term project was accompanied with a series of conversations held with the artist at his studio in Tarabya, Istanbul between 2012 and 2013.
Cengiz ekil: 21.08.1945-10.11.2015 opens with a monograph by Erden Kosova, which takes on a journey through ekil’s life—beginning in his native Bor, followed by Ankara, Van, Paris, Izmir, and finally Istanbul. The text meticulously examines his educational background and artistic practice as well as his academic roles and contributions. Edited by Ezgi Arıduru and Merve Elveren, the publication brings together articles by Ahu Antmen, Sevgi Avcı, Vasıf Kortun, and Sarah Neel-Smith, alongside interviews by Vahap Avşar and Hans Ulrich Obrist. An additional volume in the EPUB format, School of Cengiz ekil is based on a video work of the same title by ekil’s former student Vahap Avşar. Edited by Vasıf Kortun, the text is compiled from a series of intimate conversations that took place between ekil and Avşar over a period of 20 years, beginning in 1995 in Ankara.
This project, which was initialized and conducted by the artist’s gallery Rampa until its closure in 2017, was assigned to SALT in 2019 under the patronage of Rampa’s co-founder Leyla Tara Suyabatmaz and with the full consent of the ekil family. Conceived to commemorate and scrutinize the artist’s practice, both Cengiz ekil: 21.08.1945-10.11.2015 and School of Cengiz ekil carry a special significance as they convey the artist’s own voice and ideas today.
"[…] I wanted to respond to that particularly gloomy period marked by the canonization of death… when our lives were engulfed with fear. I constantly reminded my students that the most important thing in life was to live—that life was precious."*
*A quote from Cengiz ekil on his work Diary (1976), later acquired by The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York in 2011.
