INQUIRIES
For this exhibition, as in her previous work, Akdogan employs standard materials that are ordinarily used for utilitarian ends. She examines objects that either lie outside our field of vision or are rendered invisible by their ubiquity. The so-called “french cleats” are arranged and rearranged on the walls and bookshelves, but in a manner contrary to their intended use, becoming functionally redundant. Akdogan unravels the hierarchical support/surface relationship between the wall, the cleat, and the artwork. She brings to the fore the backbone that holds the picture, those objects that are conventionally used as structural supports for hanging artworks, hidden from sight. The standard colors are used here only to indicate the peculiarity of the cleat, its 45 degree angle.
Faction #15 stages the absent cleat through the trace of its negative form. The ideal disappearance of the cleat is obtained via the flagrant visibility of the spray paint on the wall. This gesture again subverts the division between the manual and mental labor, between the functional and the aesthetic.
Carousel#9 is a slide projection work comprised of 80 diapositives. Secured between the frames of 35mm slide cartridges are fragments of transparent plastic bags and packaging found in Athens. Akdogan notes: “The slides study the seams and how they are fused. Usually they are the sole bond that allows a surface to contain a volume. They are in the “background.” During production, plastic layers are liquefied and fused with the impact of a weight that leaves its imprint. The imprint (the seam) becomes the support. The support (cleat) becomes the surface.”
Rey Akdogan completed the Whitney Independent Study Program in 2004 after receiving her MA from Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design in 2001. Recent exhibitions dedicated to her work include a solo exhibition at Radio Athènes, Greece, Crash Rail (Miguel Abreu, New York, 2015), Rey Akdogan (Hannah Hoffman, Los Angeles, 2014), night curtain (Miguel Abreu Gallery, 2012), off set (MoMA PS1, 2012), Silent Partner (Andrew Roth Gallery, 2012), carousels, rolls, and offcuts (Campoli Presti, London, 2011), and Universal Fittings (Common Room 2, 2008). She has also been included in group exhibitions at Miguel Abreu Gallery, Real Fine Arts, Venetia Kapernekas Gallery, Simone Subal Gallery, Elisabeth Ivers Gallery (all in New York), Galerie Balice Hertling (Paris), Galerie Tatjana Pieters (Ghent) and Rodeo Gallery (Istanbul). #46, a book of the artist’s work, was published by PPP Editions in 2012. Conceived as an extended footnote to her use of slide carousels and lighting alterations, it unfolds as a handheld slide projection in book form.
