The Tumult of an Inanimate Love
5 – 25 Mart 2013
AMIR SHINGRAY
Galeri Artist LAB
Opening : 5 March 2013
Sudanese-Canadian artist Amir Shingray opens his second solo show in Istanbul at Gallery Artist Lab. Exactly twenty one years later. Shingray’s last solo show in Istanbul was mounted in February 1992 at Istanbul French Cultural center.
“An emotional roller coaster, seeing old friends after twenty years, now they’re with families and grown children” said Shingray describing the past two weeks “In addition to that seeing the old city again made me shift my plans and start making works about this return to Istanbul” continued Shingray explaining the return to the city of his youth and where he started his art career as a student in Bogazici University.
At this show Shingray will present works from two sequences:
1- Prosthetic for an Ottoman Eunuch
“Prosthetic for an Ottoman Eunuch” is a sequence of works that explores the intersect of race, sexuality, power.
In many ways the overly Sexualized black man have contributed to an incredible amount of violence ultimately expressed in the traumatic severing of the penis and the testicles of young African boys for functional reasons. Having seen some images of “Kizler Agasi” driven the Artist to engage in investigating the incredible survival power of these African men through reconstruction various imaginary profiles. The works will be and attempt of modern portraiture through the prism of recent development of the African Diaspora Identity. These works are extension to Shingray older works abut forced immigration and displacement.
2- The Tumult of An Inanimate Love
“The Tumult of An Inanimate Love” is a sequence of works that deals with the artist inability to sever a creative umbilical cord between himself and Istanbul. As the city and what it represented and continue to represent has been a source if continuous inspiration to his work. As he explains it “I have been away for two decades and, yet, I continued to worked on many series that dealt with my relationship to Istanbul, in a way I have mythologized my past existence in Istanbul for the twenty years I have been away, which contributed to a very tumultuous and emotional return to the city”.
In executing these works Shingray worked on developing larger visual vocabularies that can best describe these sentiments.
Amir Shingray’s visit to Istanbul was facilitated by an Artists Grant to Toronto Arts Council and an invitation by Galataperfom. While in Istanbul Mr.Shingray works at Genco Gulan’s Studio at Galata Istanbul.
For media contact and more information
T + 90 212 2276852