“Real happiness must be this: The just before achieving what we strive to reach,” Based on Bilge Karasu’s dictum, Evren Erol makes us experience the process of finding happiness. This exhibition which relays not happiness itself, but the process of finding it, can be seen at Bozlu Art Project, Mongeri Building from May 17 to June 18.
In his book called de ki [say that] which serves as the intellectual basis of this exhibition, Oruç Aruoba suggests that “You will always experience shortcomings or excesses, and this will be your life: a sum of deficiencies-excesses.” Scultupre-figures in the exhibition rest, wonder, and walk… They are on the move, searching; however, they weren’t/haven’t been able to find it “yet.” Don’t we understand the value of happiness and joy when we suffer or feel sad? Thus, the state of “wellness” is not permanent. That’s why this exhibition does not promise you eternal hope or a happy ending, nor does it make false promises. In life, like Evren Erol’s sculptures, we get excited, rise, break up, disintegrate, and then start the process again.
Similar to the processes we go through in life, sculptures migrate from rise to fall, from blue to black just like the experience you get from the rooms in the exhibition space. The goals we were made to think that are crucial, are not important. We will never constitute a self-contained unity. Artist points to the fact that Being “aware”, artist suggests, is sufficient for this life. Who am I, where are my parts, where are my roots, do I want to make a move to get rid of them like these statues?
In this exhibition, titled “Just Before”, Evren Erol makes the audience experience life, the “process” of it once again as if the audience were the sculpture-figure themselves. The exhibition situates the audience in the process of life in the imaginary world of the sculpture-figure that brings them to “just before” that exciting moment before happiness. And the rest… The rest is up to audience. The exhibition can be seen at Bozlu Art Project Mongeri Building between May 17 – June 18.
