ODUNPAZARı/ESKIşEHIR.- OMM - Odunpazarı Modern Museum kicks off the new art season with a selection of works from the Erol Tabanca Collection. As an exploration of mythological and speculative horizons opened up by the prospect of two suns in the sky, “Under Two Suns” offers a journey through refractions of light and shadows. Curated by Aslı Seven, the selection shares a sensibility towards optical, thermal, metamorphic, and affective phenomena surrounding sunlight and its atmospheric refractions, exploring the profoundly solar, relational, and mutating nature of our being in the world. Showcasing works produced in a range of media including painting, photography, sculpture, video, and installation, the exhibition can be seen from August 24, 2023.

Conceived as a pluralistic sensory device to allow multiple suns to shine through cosmic time, the exhibition presents constellations of works investigating color, shadow, and background-figure relationships as the main ingredients of compositions seeking to capture the very fleeting essence of color perception, in appreciation of the landscape genre, or those where physical light becomes a metaphor for inner light.

Exploring the aesthetic possibilities surrounding mimicry as a biological and cultural impulse, the exhibition features artworks by 45 Turkish and international artists including Abidin Dino, Ahmet Oran, Alpin Arda Bağcık, Aras Seddigh, Azade Köker, Bedri Rahmi Eyüboğlu, Berkay Buğdan, Burcu Yağcıoğlu, Burhan Uygur, Ebru Uygun, Erdağ Aksel, Erol Akyavaş, Etel Adnan, Fatma Bucak, Ferruh Başağa, Fikret Muallâ, Gizem Akkoyunoğlu, Guido Casaretto, Haluk Akakçe, Hoca Ali Rıza, Hüsamettin Koçan, İlhan Koman, İnci Eviner, Kemal Önsoy, Ken Matsubara, Komet, Mehmet Güleryüz, Murat Akagündüz, Mübin Orhon, Nejad Melih Devrim, Nejat Satı, Nuri Abaç, Nuri İyem, Orhan Peker, Osman Dinç, Rasim Aksan, Sabri Berkel, Sadık Arı, Serhat Kiraz, Seyhun Topuz, Taner Ceylan, Tayfun Erdoğmuş, TUNCA, Yağız Özgen and Zoë Paul.

“Under Two Suns” showcases an imaginative hypothesis and proposes the idea of two suns as a new way to look at works of art through the shifting perspective of an inverted relationship with the Sun in which the source of all light, life and wisdom becomes a potentially threatening force, a darker sun or too much of a sun. In this sense, the exhibition narrates this apocalyptic sublime of a scorched Earth under changing climate conditions, which may also reveal the glowing beams of a re-enchantment of nature.

Tied to the rotation of our planet and our bodies in relation to the sun, the exhibition follows its incremental, permeable relationship to sunlight and the environment through a threefold installment. Taking its inspiration from the architecture of OMM, designed by the acclaimed Kengo Kuma and Associates, “Under Two Suns” can be visited until July 28, 2024.

OMM – Odunpazarı Modern Museum

OMM is a cross-cultural platform where modern and contemporary art from Turkey and abroad is exhibited with a universal perspective. Launched in September 2019, OMM is also a distinctive architectural landmark designed by Kengo Kuma and Associates (KKAA), the world-renowned architectural office. Founded by art collector and businessperson Erol Tabanca, OMM is the first of its kind in Eskisehir, a university city in northwest Turkey. OMM continues to welcome its visitors with innovative exhibition programs and events that are open to different disciplines and focused on intercultural communication.

Aslı Seven

Asli Seven is an independent curator and writer based between Istanbul and Paris. Her research and curatorial projects focus on infrastructure, landscape, pedagogy and performativity of documents, with an emphasis on fieldwork, ficto-criticism, and co-creation. In 2020, she was the recipient of CNAP and Cité des Arts grant and residency for curators in Paris. Since 2014, she has collaborated as a curator and writer with museums, foundations, art centers and residencies across Turkey, France, Spain, Belgium and Portugal. Since 2018, she has led workshops and taught as a guest lecturer at Sotheby’s Institute of Art, London; Arter Research Program, Istanbul; ENSA Bourges and MOCO ESBA Montpellier. She holds a doctoral degree in Artistic Research from ENSA Bourges and EESI Poitiers-Angouleme and a Research MA in Political Science from Université Paris 1 – Sorbonne. She is a member of AICA, C-E-A (French Association for Curators) and an alumni of Independent Curators International (ICI).

Odunpazarı Modern Museum
Under Two Suns
August 24th, 2023 - July 28th, 2024