Tonight in Istanbul: Kirkor Sahakoğlu - "Absent" Exhibition opening at Depo

Upcoming Exhibition: Kirkor Sahakoğlu - Absent

• Opening: Thursday 5 March, 18:30
• Dates: 5 March 2015 - 29 March 2015
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Absent

Kirkor Sahakoğlu

6 - 29 March 2015
Opening: Thursday 5 March, 18:30

Depo hosts Kirkor Sahakoğlu's exhibition titled "Absent" comprised of 39 paintings and one video. Sahakoğlu's works are manifestations of a surprising rush of emotions, a profound anguish of the soul... Paintings of "Absent", created through improvisation with intense and free brushstrokes, bear the tokens of a soot-black reticence and a bleeding void. Coalescing with these paintings the video presents a disquieting reality, a harsh insurgence that questions life and death.

Sahakoğlu notes that in "Absent" he expresses a state of being left wanting, a loss not duly lamented, a sorrow passed on from one generation to the next: "These paintings are a bond that I established with the ones I have lost. This is why they do not each have a separate name. If they did, they would probably be called Artin, Agop, Sarkis, Yeranuş, Hripsime, Boğos. But for me the name of all of these paintings is Absent. Yes, this century is the story of an absence, of being left wanting. And even the stirrings of those who persist to exist despite these."

Born in İstanbul, Kirkor Sahakoğlu attended Getronagan High School, after which he graduated from the School of National Applied Fine Arts Advertising Graphics Department. Later he received his master's degree at Istituto Europeo Di Design in Milan. He also studied at Domus Academy and participated in workshops. As of 1985 Sahakoğlu worked as art director and creative director in prominent advertising agencies of Turkey, and later founded his own agency. He assisted numerous institutions and products in their branding processes. Recipient of innumerable Crystal Apple awards of the Association of Advertising Agencies, since 2010 Sahakoğlu has been working freelance, as well as teaching undergraduate and graduate students at Marmara University Faculty of Fine Arts. Sahakoğlu also organizes seminars and workshops in various universities.

Address: DEPO / Tütün Deposu Lüleci Hendek Caddesi No.12 
Tophane 34425 İstanbul 

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Past exhibition:

Exhibition: Helen Sheehan - Armenian Family Stories and Lost Landscapes

This is Irish photographer Helen Sheehan's second exhibition in Turkey. In May 2014 she showed her projected photographic sound pieces inside the restored Armenian church of St. Giragos in Diyarbakır with the organization of Diyarbakır Sanat Merkezi and as part of the Second Photography Days held by DIFAK. Sheehan's interest in Armenia and its diaspora was triggered by working as a teacher in the Mechitarist Seminary school on the Armenian Island of St. Lazzaro in Venice in the 1990s. However this interest was re-awakened again in 2009 when she decided to narrate stories of Armenians in diaspora, both in Paris and London, where she was able to forge relationships with descendants of the exiles. By sheer co-incidence most of the families could trace their ancestors back to the Eastern Anatolian city of Diyarbakır, known to them as Digranagerd. Others have connections to Marash, Zeytun and Van region. Sheehan tries to connect with their lost landscape and also attempts to engage with the people now living in these places and how they have transformed them into their own spaces.

Sheehan's background is a fusion of photojournalist and fine art sensibilities which were forged in the context of attending Art college in the Republic of Ireland in the 1980s. For two decades she has returned again and again to diaspora narratives and in particular to the experience of being forcibly displaced. In the 1990s she photographed the break up of three formally multi-ethnic towns and cities in the Former Yugoslavia - Sarajevo, Vukovar and Mostar. This forged her commitment to human rights issues and she has exhibited with Amnesty International in Slovenia, Dublin and London. Other work includes commissions from Elle Magazine, The Independent, London and radio work for the BBC World Service.