halil akdeniz: an observing approach to the problem of pollution in the gulf of İzmir
MÜMTAZ SAĞLAM
Halil Akdeniz / an observing approach to the problem of pollution in the gulf of İzmir* / The tendency laying the ground for the spatial imagination and sustaining the archaeological texture carried along in the background becomes more and more clear in this process. Progressive transformation swept away the expression developed by Halil Akdeniz on an abstract plane to an intellectual and visual space of special character through references. Moreover, the common formal elements found in the paintings addressing the pollution in the bay transformed in an original language (expression) and formed a developing and diversifying artistic approach. And his viewpoint moved off from this issue in a short time and created new painting concepts such as ‘’Visual Notes from İzmir’’ and ‘’Visual Notes – Ruins of Ephesus’’ finding nourishment in local dynamics.
The analytical observations of Halil Akdeniz in association with environment-culture-history turn into a decisive search in a process where the conceptual transformation in art reaches the highest point in 1970s years. In this process, the general and universal content of the abstract arrangements with geometrical character coincides with an actual and local problem and opens a new plane for itself. So, Akdeniz got interested in the issue of ‘’Pollution in the Gulf of İzmir’’ that came to the forefront as an environmental problem in İzmir in 1970s and 1980s years and adopted a painting perception developing in a new symbol and object order and combining the scientific and visual languages. The narrative of the abstract painting developed in this way into symbols and icons that visualise an actual and local environmental problem. In the first instance, it differentiated, in a distanced space, with the tense and didactic expression of the abstract and conceptual language and provided a new interpretation proposal and developmental direction for his painting.
For this reason, the artist turns towards a serial of paintings that would develop new relations in terms of surface-colour and form rather than imitating the event in question with its implicit indicators. Even though he underlines the importance of the problem in its social-ecological seriousness, he addresses the problem in a simple and direct expression in its aestheticization with scientific data and indicators. The serial of paintings initiated under the name ‘’Visual Treatments of the Pollution in the Gulf of İzmir’’ is regulated in a new structuring approach that shocks the public and demolishes the depth. It contains implicit references and attributions in quasi collage form. The association with İzmir in terms of theme and space provides us the possibility to question and interpret the outer world, an actual event basing on a presentation which is unusual for us. In other words, this is a new painting concept that is conceptualized just as we observe it in modern artistic practices.
What here new and different is, in fact, a proposal for a new communication language in terms of surface-colour and form rather than imitating the event in question with its implicit indicators. Even though he underlines the importance of the problem in its social-ecological seriousness, he addresses the problem in a simple and direct expression in its aestheticization with scientific data and indicators. The serial of paintings initiated under the name ‘’Visual Treatments of the Pollution in the Gulf of İzmir’’ is regulated in a new structuring approach that shocks the public and demolishes the depth. It contains implicit references and attributions in quasi collage form. The association with İzmir in terms of theme and space provides us the possibility to question and interpret the outer world, an actual event basing on a presentation which is unusual for us. In other words, this is a new painting concept that is conceptualized just as we observe it in modern artistic practices.
What here new and different is, in fact, a proposal for a new communication language in terms of building the painting surface in a pictogram logic and conception. This painting approach is a complex practice where the artist makes an attempt, in an early period, to visualize a new and actual problem by developing an image order reflecting the elements woven in the event, time and space. The tendency laying the ground for the spatial imagination and sustaining the archaeological texture carried along in the background becomes more and more clear in this process. Progressive transformation swept away the expression developed by Akdeniz on an abstract plane to an intellectual and visual space of special character through references. Moreover, the common formal elements found in the paintings addressing the pollution in the bay transformed in an original language (expression) and formed a developing and diversifying artistic approach. And his viewpoint moved off from this issue in a short time and created new painting concepts such as ‘’Visual Notes from İzmir’’ and ‘’Visual Notes – Ruins of Ephesus’’ finding nourishment in local dynamics. A context producing responses in association with cultural values in a historical (archaeological) background stands now at a strong threshold creating new harmonies of imagination.
Mumtaz Sağlam, Copyright © 2020, Tüm hakları saklıdır. / All rights reserved.
* Mümtaz Sağlam; Halil Akdeniz / Retrospective, Türkiye iş Bankası Culture Publishing, İstanbul, 2015.
