German artist Gabriele Heidecker meets viewers at PG Art Gallery Tophane with her exhibition titled “Art Sphere Istanbul.”
For the past ten years, Berlin-born Gabriele Heidecker has been traveling to art fairs around the world. While documenting the fair environments that impress her with their intensity and energy through photography, she successfully transforms the images she captures into artworks of her own.
The artist’s works are brought together in Art Affairs, published by Hatje Cantz. In this book she visualizes the main protagonists of important art events such as Art Basel, Miami Beach, Frieze, ARCO, FIAC and Art Cologne. For Heidecker, the real significance of this project lies in the way the art market itself presents as a work of art. From bored gallerists to exhausted visitors, from well-known curators to powerful collectors, everyone and every detail is reflected through the lens of her camera.
In photographs taken at fairs that increasingly resemble carnival-like environments, the artist presents a different visuality in which exhibited artworks and the leading figures of the art world merge into one another. Her photographs go far beyond being simple documents; they form an artistic practice captured by a sharp eye. According to the artist, the fair phenomenon is a different world with its own language, scale and time, waiting to be discovered.
In recent years Heidecker has also visited regions emerging as alternative markets to the West. Through photographs she took at Contemporary Istanbul in 2009 and 2010, she approaches the contemporary art scene in Turkey from her own unique perspective. While the selection at PG Art Gallery includes scenes from art fairs around the world, it also features photographs reflecting the dynamic structure of the Istanbul art scene.
Born in Germany in 1945, Gabriele Heidecker lives and works in Berlin. After studying art at the State Academy for Fine Arts, she studied Art History at the University of Stuttgart. Working across different fields of production and research, Heidecker began the Art Affairs photography project in 2001. Most recently, works from this series titled Art Affairs Photographs were shown at Galerie Beyeler in Basel in 2008.
