In his new exhibition “instru-mental II,” Kemal Tufan deepens the cage-form works he produced in previous years through new representations. The series, which began with metal sculptures in the shape of a fountain pen and a hammerhead shark containing birds within them, evolves toward more minimal forms in this exhibition.
One of the most striking characteristics of the artist’s metal sculptures in this style is that they occupy space not volumetrically, but by “drawing boundaries.” The body of Tufan’s sculptures is inaccessible. Yet this inaccessibility does not establish itself visually, because it is possible to see the space through the sculptures. For this very reason, the works are constructed through the relationship between perception and space. In order to see the sculpture, one does not need a visual field equivalent to the area it occupies. The “cage” is a structure that creates space within space, allowing one to see inside from the outside and outside from the inside. While this approach addresses the fundamental problems of sculpture, it is also the result of the artist’s interpretation of the concepts of “camouflage,” “protection,” and “nature” through his own iconography.
In Tufan’s exhibition “instru-mental II,” this quality is made particularly visible in the clouds positioned on the gallery ceiling. Kemal Tufan poetically reinterprets the ephemeral qualities of the cloud — which can be seen yet also entered — through his own materials. The transient forms of the cloud, transformed into a sculpture, still retain their permeability in Tufan’s works.
Rather than moving directly into arrangement, Kemal Tufan is an artist who problematizes the definition of sculpture by navigating the limits of classical materials. The introduction of literary devices such as paradox, contradiction, and irony into the field of sculpture; the embedding of moving images within sculptures; and at times the transformation of living beings into sculpture, stem not from Tufan being a multidisciplinary artist, but from his self-identification as a sculptor. By keeping sculpture at the center, Tufan allows other materials to become sculptural.
Born in Silivri in 1962, the artist completed his degree in Industrial Engineering at Istanbul Technical University before graduating from the Sculpture Department of Mimar Sinan University Faculty of Fine Arts. Having realized numerous exhibitions both in Turkey and abroad, the artist’s outdoor sculptures are installed in various cities around the world.
