Kutlug Ataman

2004–5 Carnegie Prize Winner

Kutlug Ataman's 40-channel video installation in this gallery constructs, voice by voice, a communal portrait of Kuba, an alternative society in an Istanbul shanty town that exists as an island amid neighboring high-rise buildings. The residents of Kuba range from criminals, drug addicts, and teenage delinquents to religious radicals to the very poor. Through uninterrupted soliloquies presented on individual monitors, Kuba's residents reveal themselves, and collectively their stories establish the unique identity of a community where freedom and individual rights are valued over traditional laws and established norms. There is no indication whether the stories that Kuba's residents tell are straight autobiography or fantasy, because Ataman is interested less in separating truth from fiction than in presenting the complex intertwining of the two. The result is a compelling portrait of a self-constructed society composed of individual identities yet grounded in a web of community values that embrace nearly unlimited personal freedom and mutual tolerance.

Selected Bibliography:

Anton, Saul. "A Thousand Words: Kutlug Ataman Talks About 1+1=1." Artforum 41, no. 6 (February 2003): 116–17.

Honigman, Ana Finel. "Kutlug Ataman." Tema Celeste 93 (September–October 2002): 91.

Kuba. Exhibition catalogue. London: Artangel, 2004.

Kutlug Ataman: A Rose Blooms in the Garden of Sorrows. Exhibition catalogue. Vienna: BAWAG Foundation, 2002.

Smith, Roberta. "Kutlug Ataman's 'Never My Soul.'" New York Times, July 12, 2002.

Links:

RA Magazine

Bawag Foundation