Creative Destruction@Turkish Daily News

16.02.2009
’Creative Destruction’ in art space

Hürriyet Daily News

ISTANBUL - Outlet, an independent art space in Istanbul aiming to provide a breath of fresh air to the contemporary art scene of the city challenges set structures and addresses what is lacking with a variety of enriching projects.

In its third exhibition, "Creative Destruction," Outlet intends to bring dynamism to the established state of affairs in the art world and calls on everyone to witness some creative urban destruction.

"Creative Destruction" includes the works of six artists who are preoccupied with urban issues. In the ground floor space drawings, paintings and photography by Seçil Alkış (İzmir), Osman Bozkurt (Istanbul), Elmas Deniz (İstanbul), Hakan Kırdar (İzmir), Nejat Satı (İzmir) and Şener Özmen (Diyarbakır) come together to form an installation full of a potential for dialogue. The content of the works make visible conflicts of the city, paradoxes as well as questions, flows and boundaries.

According to David Harvey, who borrowed the term creative destruction from economists, the right to the city is not merely a right of access to what already exists, but also a right to change it. "Creative Destruction" therefore, becomes increasingly more relevant, especially after what happened in Athens in the last days of 2008, when out of destruction a new spirit of creativity arose.

In the Outlet Project Room downstairs, Allora and Calzadilla’s video "Under Discussion" urges viewers to take action.

Outlet, which is run by Azra Tüzünoğlu with support from Canan Pak, AYK, Mas Printing, BenQ, Point Hotel, Beck’s, Coca Cola, Net Copy Center and Derin Design, is a venture to bring art, regarded as a luxury commodity, to the masses, in a time and space where social and cultural inequity is increasingly deeper entrenched. It hopes to provide an innovative and vigorous platform for an artistic context wedged between the city's many bank galleries, private institutions and museums.

The Outlet Project Room hosts distinctive works by artists from Turkey and abroad, and helps support the production of new projects, desiring to intertwine a commercial and a nonprofit project space to encourage new attitudes and conversations.

The latest exhibition will be open until March 15. Opening hours are from Tuesday to Saturday between 10 a.m. and 6 p.m.