A repetitive series of images
The uniqueness of the work of art is identical to its intertwining in the traditional context. This tradition, of course, has a wholly vivid and interchangeable quality.
*Walter Benjamin
Beginning with a quote from Walter Benjamin, who makes an important reference to the uniqueness of the works, this text also underlines an important transmission about Mert Ege Köse's sculptures. Moving beyond the production of classical and static artworks, moreover, sculpture, Köse's researcher identity, which carries the line he learned at school to the abstract, touches the uniqueness of the work and the subject, and reveals his experimental and alternative production spirit in a striking way.
Mert Ege Köse's works are traced in the axis of the bright reflections of aluminum in a distinct dynamism between coincidence and routine. Using materials such as metal, aluminum, brass and sometimes copper in his works, Köse conveys his plastic works through abstract sculptures. In his exhibition at PG Art Gallery, he presents the viewer with the regular and random, rhythmically curved structural variations of aluminum sculptures in a natural flow.
In Köse's works, the reflective surface of the aluminum material like an optical mirror, the easily malleable alloy of the material and the in-depth research between its smooth states are manifested in the works. In addition to the natural, smooth and sometimes routine flow of colorless and naturalistic aluminum used in the sculptures, in some of the works, colorful, curved and, in Köse's own words, "cheerful" pieces of aluminum create a contrast with harmony. While natural aluminum creates a cold and leaden dullness, colorful and repetitive pieces of aluminum in distinct rhythms point to the variable nature of plastic production and its bright and allegorical approaches. The sculptures offer indications of Köse's orientations between coincidence and plan, or didacticism and ambiguity. The easy bendability of aluminum in its physiological conditions and its form that can take shape quickly transform the materials into an integrated form by welding them together.
Working with a specific semi-open composition, the abstract sculptures are meticulously constructed layer by layer and created in a delicate flow based on information, spirituality and nature within the framework of topics such as science - art, life - world. The sculpture art and production, material researches, conceptual orientations and the scientific, meditative and performative approach in Köse's artistic louvre, which he learned in Meriç Hızal's workshop, are reflected in his works with great enthusiasm. While the obvious oval and angular forms observed in the sculptures are observed in an unlimited acceleration, at the same time, each form emerges as a product of a limited, planned and organized strategy. Köse's sculptures, which he constructs with a systematic working discipline and a mix of creativity, present a clear order in the relationship between the part and the whole, and as we go from the general to the specific, each piece turns into a reflection of disorder in order within its own aura.
The works do not refer didactically and objectively to a particular expression, thought or situation within today's understanding of art, but they carry distorted, hidden references from the dusty corridors of art history to this time, to all the evolutionary and communicative processes that the world, nature and humanity have undergone. Refraining from presenting a sharp implication, Köse opens a door to abstract, blurred and individualized narratives on the axis of the feeling of producing eternal values about the world. Köse's sculptures invite the viewer It takes us into its own abstract universe, imprisons us, takes us on a journey through repetitive rows of aluminum, and unifies us between the sculptures and layers of subjective stories. No matter how objective and at the center of a narrative about the artist, the work creates a new content for each viewer and its meaning changes with each view, as stated after Postmodernism. Although the aura of the work abstractly conveys the everyday and contemporary narrative on a social scale, the feeling that will awaken in the viewer is synthesized as a new and experimental, moreover subjective, personal narrative. The dialog Köse establishes with his productions is observed in an alternative and linear balance with the viewer's individual understanding, sensation and transmission in today's art. The sculptures, with their sharp parts and smooth surfaces, create minimal actions and give birth to millions of variable possibilities.
Ultimately, Mert Ege Köse's aluminum sculptures, as a touchstone from the past to the present, refer to a slick, delicate surface perception, a cyclical search for rhythm, motion within order, an implicit wave of dynamism, and random, variable, precise and specific worldly narratives with a unique plastic aesthetic quest. The works hover on the margins of a social transmission and create a collision of action with the exoticist, drawing the boundlessness of an amorphous, abstract-geometric, ironic world.
Melike Bayık
