Nur Koçak
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Nur Koçak is a contemporary feminist Turkish artist who was born in Istanbul, Turkey in 1941. She is a pioneering representative of hyperrealism in Turkey since the 1970s.[1] She is most well known for her works that comment on women's objectification in consumerist societies. She lives and works in Istanbul, Turkey. [2][3]
Education[]
Koçak attended TED Ankara College where she learned painting from Turgut Zaim.[4] She continued her high school education in Washington DC, and was taught by the abstract-expressionist Leon Berkowitz.[1] In 1960, she returned to Istanbul, where she studied under , Cemal Tollu and in the Painting Department of the Istanbul Academy of Fine Arts. In 1970, she came first in the National Ministry of Education examinations and was sent to Paris on a scholarship to study painting at École des Beaux-Arts in the studio of Jean Bertholle.[5][6] In 1974 Koçak returned to Istanbul and began teaching at the Istanbul State Academy of Fine Arts between 1975 and 1981. She later taught in the Painting Department of the Faculty of Education at Marmara University between 2000 and 2001.
Works[]
While in Paris, she was influenced by the Situationists and their critique of consumerism. After studying French advertisements and their representation of the female body, she became particularly interested in the photo-realism movement and created her first series of paintings entitled Fetishist Objects/Woman as an Object.[3] Koçak shows how the media uses fetish objects and objectifies women images. The artist wanted to find new ways of understanding images in culture.[6] She further developed her style in a following series, Pictures of Happiness, where she moved from painting and began to use recycled images into art pieces. She continued this theme in Family Album, another series that uses found images, this time from her own past. Another change was “Vitrines”, a series consisting of images of herself in the context of how women's bodies and images are displayed on commercial vitrines in 1980s Istanbul.[6]
Koçak employs a style that directly confronts the issues of consumerism and women while excluding women from most of her art: it is the objects of female ornamentation (lipstcik, underwear, etc) that are the focus of her work, while the female body is depicted only in a fragmented way.[2] This is a commentary on how women are driven by the advertisements they see in society and are constricted by this limitation. Koçak's criticism of consumerist culture and its representations of female body has contributed to the feminist movement in Turkey.[2]
Exhibitions[]
Nur Koçak participated at the International Triennial of Plastic Arts Belgrade in 1979 and the International Drawing Biennial Lisbon in 1979 and 1981. Her work was included in the Made in Turkey: Artists' Positions 1978-2008 Exhibition at the Ernst Barlach Museum in Wedel and the Drostei Museum in Pinneberg, Germany.[7][8] She began the painting series “Fetiş Nesneler /Nesne Kadınlar” in Paris in 1974. Koçak has had 13 solo exhibitions and participated in many group exhibitions in Turkey and abroad. Since 1981, Koçak has continued creating art her Istanbul workshop.
Koçak's work was included in the 2012 exhibition Dream and Reality: Modern and Contemporary Women Artists from Turkey and the 2013 group exhibition Past and Future at the İstanbul Modern.[9][10]
A comprehensive exhibition of Nur Koçak's work was presented at SALT Beyoğlu and SALT Galata in 2019. Titled after one of her works, Our Blissful Souvenirs comprises a selection of early drawings and photographic series, produced between the 1960s and 2010s. The exhibition examined the spread of popular culture from women’s magazines and Hollywood movies through to its repercussions in Turkey.
References[]
- ^ a b "Nur Koçak". Turkish Culture. Retrieved 21 February 2017.
- ^ a b c Deepwell, Katy (2010). n.paradoxa (PDF) (2 ed.). KT Press. pp. 20–23. Retrieved 20 February 2017.
- ^ a b ART, ISTANBUL MODERN, ISTANBUL MUSEUM OF MODERN. "A Selection from the Collection - İstanbul Modern". secure.istanbulmodern.org. Retrieved 2018-04-03.
- ^ "Nur Koçak". Mine Sanat Galerisi. Retrieved 20 February 2017.
- ^ www.benarti.com, Benarti Yazilim Cozumleri -. "Nur Koçak | exhibitions | galeri nev". www.galerinev.com. Archived from the original on 2018-04-03. Retrieved 2018-04-03.
- ^ a b c "Nur Koçak". Galeri Nev. Archived from the original on 3 April 2018. Retrieved 20 February 2017.
- ^ "Nur Koçak". graphcommons.com. Retrieved 2018-04-03.
- ^ "NUR KOÇAK | 44A". 44a.com.tr (in Turkish). Retrieved 2018-04-03.
- ^ "Dream and Reality - İstanbul Modern". www.istanbulmodern.org. Retrieved 2017-09-06.
- ^ ART, ISTANBUL MODERN, ISTANBUL MUSEUM OF MODERN. "Past and Future - İstanbul Modern". www.istanbulmodern.org. Retrieved 2018-04-03.
Further reading[]
- Renda, Günsel; Pınar, Selman (1989). A History of Turkish Painting. Seattle: University of Washington Press. pp. 402, 408. ISBN 9782882190000. OCLC 756999877.
- Living people
- 1941 births
- 20th-century Turkish women artists
- 21st-century Turkish women artists
- Turkish feminists
- Artists from Istanbul
- Photorealist artists