Around The World With Flip-Flops

Growing up in 80’s Turkey wasn’t very much about bad haircuts or shoulder pads. After the army’s intervention to democracy (the third time) the atmosphere in Turkey was rather dark. We were going to school, secretly reading some of the banned books, listening some of the banned music and we thought freedom must be something like that. We wanted the freedom but we didn’t understand the definition of it so much. It took me quite a long time to understand what is really freedom is through art. During that time, while everything is repressed and everybody is in a rather dark mood, there was something going on in Turkey that was rather interesting and hilarious, and that was our humor. Humor in the form of cartoons published in weekly comic magazines. After a long tradition of writers and comics like Nasrettin Hoca and Aziz Nesin, a young generation of Turkish cartoonist re-invented the power of humor and how humor can be use to open up some areas in society to allow them to breath and fight back. These young cartoonists captured very well what is going on in contemporary society, more than any other art form. They thought us to how to laugh at the situation instead of cry, it was a different angle to life all together. It gave a lot of hope to my generation and we learned a lot from them. May be that is why humor became one of the trademarks of contemporary Turkish art today and why it is also so important in my work. Cinema, poetry and literature have always been very strong in Turkey. However contemporary art was very weak, the art schools were terrible and there was almost no place to exhibit. There were no art institutions or museums. There were very few artists making interesting work. The only serious institute was the Istanbul Biennale and even they weren’t as strong or as popular as they are today. So when I decide to study art, I thought I should leave Turkey and find somewhere where I can learn and practice art with much less limitation. I moved to Holland.

My photo series of “ Motherland” 2007, consists of 6 photographs. They mainly deal with the symbolism of military clothing. The largest photograph in the series is called “ Motherland ” 180x270 cm, it shows five soldiers all from different nationalities holding a belly dancer horizontally. This is a very feminine, half naked woman surrounded by solders with their hands all over her. This photo can be interpreted differently, firstly: a classical gender conflict, the position of women in different societies. Secondly it is a contrast between power and fragility; thirdly, as the title suggests army protecting and/or controlling a country at the same time. The soldiers are wearing different countries uniforms so this does not suggest any specific place however the belly dancer suggests the Middle East and Asia.
Another work from the series is “ Power Share ” two soldiers identically dressed up sharing a single hat that is balanced on their shoulders. May be the most literal one from the series is “ Down Under”, which shows a blurred image of a soldier sitting on a chair under the bottom of his shoes are all his medals. The focus is only on the medals the rest of the soldier is totally in a blur. Representing how the life of an army person is concentrated and focused on the symbolism of rank. The most subtle image from the series is “ 1man7army”, this photograph reminds me of some of the books I read a long time ago from Jery Kozinski. In this photo we can see a soldier dressed up using parts of seven different uniforms belongs to seven different countries. The idea was to create a universal uniform. The idea of a universal army itself is quite ridiculous to start with; clearly the army is there to protect the borders and national identity. I worked with an expert who specialized on military uniforms for this photo series. Having a job title like this is already strange enough for me but when I began to learn a little more about the complex symbolism used in military clothing it became fascinating. The dress codes reached almost an abstract level it wasn’t only military but civilian clothing that had it is own coded language.

After my art study and working in Europe for more than 10 years I started to look back to Turkey again. I always thought going back would be a step backwards, but as usual in art and life nothing is that linear, a backward step could be a forward one. I felt very excited the first time I took an apartment in Istanbul and started working in Turkey. Istanbul is a very inspirational city with layers of culture and visually rich. Turkey had also developed a long way, it wasn’t only that you could see the financial development but almost everywhere in life something was happening. A very silent revolution. Nothing much changed in the system but simply people were fed up with the system and they had started changing their life styles. This change was also reflecting in contemporary art as well. There was a big buzz: The Istanbul Biennale was getting international recognition; new institutions, museums galleries were opening. The art scene was still small and limited in Istanbul, but it was very fresh, everything was very new, it was finding it is own voice. In Istanbul, I spent almost everyday outside on the streets, observing the social life and making work in the lively streets of this amazing city. One of the works I made there was “ Eskici ” 2005. This photograph shows a man carrying a lighted chandelier in a street cart. The background is one of the old, desolate, colorful streets in Istanbul. A workingman from streets is pushing a chandelier in a cart, a symbol mostly related to the bourgeoisie. To own a chandelier was one of the important symbols and popular in the 50’s amongst rich people. As in most large cities around world, in Istanbul the gap between rich and poor is very visible. A workingman is carrying the weight of the rich and lighting the streets in the daytime.

After my first working period in Istanbul, I started to go to Turkey regularly to produce work, not only to Istanbul but to specific places in Turkey. One of these trips was to a small town called Hasankeyf, south east of Turkey at the shores of Tigris River. Unfortunately this place will be flooded in the near future; Turkey is developing a dam project to fulfill their energy needs, one of the prices Turkey is going to pay due to its fast development. It was very ironic that the water from the Tigris River brought to Hasankeyf a rich history and civilization was going to be the same water that will take it away. I wanted to produce some works related to water and with the local people. “ Doc ” 2008 is one of the works from that series. It shows two men standing in the water, with a rocky background. One man is fully dressed as a doctor with his scrub and white doctors coat on, checking the other man, his patient, with his stethoscope. A familiar scene from a doctors’ practice which, has been totally dislocated and brought in to the Tigris River. Water is used in different cultures for healing and cleansing, it also has religious connotations, there are ceremonies made in water or with water. This photograph approaches to same idea a bit sarcastically and brings the scientific approach to healing. May be what we can call a Darwinist work.

Servet Kocyigit, 2010 Amsterdam.
Partly published at ARTLUK, Polish art Magazine 3(17) 2010 p.86-89

“ Everything ”, 2009, 160x320x10 cm, crocheted letters, threads and frame.

... In Servet Kocyigit’s works, the meaning is formed by and within different contexts. For examaple “ Everything “ (2009), is hand-made crochet text work which makes allusions not only to the idea of masculinity and femininity, but also language itself. Dealing with prejudices, the work aims to propose question: “ is it true?”. Like Kocyigit’s other text works, at first glance this also looks like huge statement, yet almost become empty and meaningless in time while not having any positive or negative connotations. The production process of the work also proves this “absurdity of language “: the entire work is result of months of handcrafting for the ultimate purpose of claiming something, which can be interpreted as a slowing down the process of speaking…

From exhibition catalogue “ Starter ” Works from Vehbi Koc Foundation C.A. collection, 2010 ARTER , Istanbul

Servet Kocyigit

Servet Kocyigit’s photographs and installations deal with notions of collectivity and displacement, often capturing or re-creating the various ways in which the form and function of commonly accepted and understood objects, situations, and ideas transition between states of fixation and flux. His photo series ‘Poetic Modifications’ shows everyday-life objects subtly altered by the artist himself and arrangements of objects that appear displaced, while most of his more recent photographs consist of simple registrations of already existing - yet similar - situations. Simultaneously, Kocyigit shows an interest in the dynamic possibilities embedded within sculptural objects, as well as those situations in which living organisms temporarily freeze and become object-like, such as an ensemble of four stray dogs that get an almost sculptural quality right in front of his camera.
His videos show a similar interest in transitions between fixation and flux, focusing more on immaterial communicative phenomena, such as songs. In To Die For some of the various appropriations of the popular song ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’ are referred to: originally from a 1945 musical, the song was immediately taken up by British soldiers, and nowadays is the anthem of several football clubs (who also sing it when a club member dies). While the wheel of the turn table spins and the football fans express their comradery, tiny birds pop out of a hole in the artist’s chest. The video, Out of Focus consists of a collective of Georgian folk musicians that spontaneously burst into singing and jodeling in the intimate setting of a workshop. The entire scene is shot from an angle that is more obscuring then revealing. The title of the work is more than a formal reference – alluding to the often enigmatic identity Georgia seems to have in the perception of western Europe and Asia (to the extent that it is even snubbed in international weather reports broadcasted in the respective areas). In the video, Pop-Up, we see an architectural model of several solid looking skyscrapers popping up in the here-and-now through a glittering water surface, giving way to the consideration of new possibility. Pop Up metaphorically refers to the temporal, cyclic nature of our physical, as well as mental, surroundings.

Hilde Bruijn
From Smart Papers, “ Stability of Truth “ Smart Project Space 2007

“Bird Village” (2007) 6 min. Two Channels DVD, Stereo

His video work ´Bird Village´ traces the story of an isolated mountain village situated on the Black Sea Coast in Turkey and invites the viewer to witness something rather unusual. The video, shot in the village of Kus Koyu (Bird Village), presents its inhabitants in a picturesque setting. Combining a documentary approach with fiction and story telling, Kocyigit's video provides a warm and occasionally humorous glimpse at the lifestyles of the inhabitants of the Bird Village. The villagers have developed an unusual method of communication called 'bird language', very much resembling the whistling of birds. In different scenes of the video villagers stage segments from their lives. This improvised acting makes us continuously questions how much is real and what is real and negotiate the relationship between the development of culture and nature. In the village Kus Koyu the story goes that:

Almost four hundred years ago,
on a very bad winter’s day a wounded bird fell to the village.

All through the winter the villagers looked after the bird
and helped heal it’s wounds.

The bird was very thankful for their help and
in exchange taught them his language, bird language.

Since then the villagers can talk the bird language.

They have also been practicing how to fly,
but this is progressing very slowly.

However, they all believe that one day
they too will be able to fly like the bird.

“To Die For“ 2003

In the work To Die For (2003), Servet Kocyigit associates American popular music to a purely poetic vision of escape towards a better world full of hope. The records are scattered around the floor, while the dreamer is carried away by the melody. Birds come out of his body and fly freely around the room. According to the axiom, it is possible to make fabulous immobile journeys that develop and emancipate the spirit. Servet Kocyigit re-establishes the imaginary as a path towards the outside world. Thinking and dreaming of other space-times leads to self-fulfillment through introspection. The music, composed by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein, transcends traditional and national cultures, as since its release in 1945 it has not ceased to unite the most diverse artists and to serve most multiple causes. In the dream there is a kind of communion that each of us recognizes. The song becomes here an almost archetypal expression of transmission and exchange between different cultures, which are joined in accomplishment of a collective imaginary. The rhythm of a repeating puts the dreamer to sleep: the birds are plastic illustration of the passage from reality to the world of dreams. The visitor will easily understand that the place occupied on the floor by the young man, is the place we all occupy in a common hope to escape our own condition. The song You will never walk alone also expresses the conviction that the path ahead of us, imaginary or real, are only as possible as the other persons desire to walk along with us.

Faprice Flahutez
From the exhibition catalogue “ Crossings a contemporary view”, Malta, France, Cyprus 2006-07

“ Uzun Esek ” ( Long Donkey ) 2003, 4’30” Single Channel DVD, Stereo

The video shows a common children game, popular around Turkey. The players are divided in two groups: the first group bends over forming a donkey shape, while the other group jumps on their backs. The aim is to make someone fall off and then the groups will switch their position. In a change of rules initiated by the artist, the weaker team (of smaller kids) is constantly made to win. The artist was intrigued by the mode in which the game creates it human sculpture, a form of moving monument that parodies heroic sculpture and pays tribute to the winning of the weaker side.
After showing the video in certain venues world wide, it came apparent that the game was a variation of a known children game around the world. It was fascinating to discover the way in which game had no barrier of geography and language and can be developed and adapted in various cultures and traditions.

Tal Yahas

”Pop Up” (Golden cities, golden towns) 2001, 3’10” Single Channel DVD, Stereo

This film shows an architectural maquette coming out of the water in very slow motion. The image has a dream like quality as it rocks back and forth upon the waves, slowly drifting in and out of focus. It explores the relationship between memory and time. A relationship in a state of permanent flux. Something gets fashionable or almost becomes part of our lives and then after a while totally disappears. How easily individuals and society remember and forget.

“Free Shave“ (2000), 4’11” Single Channel DVD, Stereo

This video shows an open-air barbershop placed in the middle of a steel factory. It mixes the image of a barber shaving his client and industrial production. At first glance it seems to be dislocated or even surreal, seen later it becomes very natural as if it has been there for years. Two separate elements create a new existence. A whiff of perfume mixes with the chimney smoke.

9th International Istanbul Biennial

An apartment in the Deniz Palas venue provides the perfect domestic environment for this series of works by Kocyigit. The installation comprises little touches of magic that transform everyday items and form a dialogue between separate works. In the entrance hall, a broom, its brush a wig of hair - a literal translation of a Turkish idiom used by wives to express anger at their husbands - sweeps past on its tour of the apartment. In another room stands a fridge, its door, which is held ajar, is referred to in the crocheted text work: ‘Sometimes I check the fridge ten times to see if it is really closed’. The laboriousness and repetition of such paranoia is reflected in the intricate stitching, undertaken by two old ladies, to contain a phrase that can be read and checked via the fridge time and time again. The fridge, though empty, is lit inside. The contrast this creates and its secretive glow generates a similar childish delight to the lit and dazzlingly beautiful chandelier resting in the cart of a lowly rag and bone man in a staged photograph hung in a room next door.

Kocyigit’s initial influence - the daily routine of a Turkish housewife - governs the installation providing a narrative of everyday existence conditioned by cultural convention and tradition. Yet this conjured character also reveals eccentricities and enchantment to be found in the ordinary and mundane. As the wife’s imaginary presence filters from one room to the next, objects and appliances come to life and her private, internal world merges with the vitality of the streets outside.

November Paynter ( 2005 9th Istanbul Biennial exhibition catalogue IKSV)

Istanbul Biennal

16 September – 30 October

…“ In one apartment, Istanbul-based artist Servet Koçyigit actually reveals what it is, in the prosaic sense, to be Turkish – something that the show could have included more of. Rooms are strewn with household objects; rendered useless, they take on metaphoric meaning. A fridge has carved into the floor through the repetitive opening and shutting of its door; brightly coloured stitches covering houseplants excessively beautify the home, and a broom of hair attached to a track on the ceiling sweeps the floorboards over and over again. Uselessness and repetition present the endless cycle of domesticity, while each object’s beauty – craft spawned by monotonous labour – points to a rich and mysterious side of domestic work.”…

Madeline Nusser ( 2005 Contemporary art magazine issue 78)