Friday

From the catalogue

An art event originating from the city-plan etchings of 22 cities in Europe made for an illustrated encylopedia in the middle of the 19th century. (The 1851 edition of the Iconographic Encylopedia of Science, Literature and Art.)

I have produced these 23 art objects (one more than the city plans which have inspired this project, because there are two paintings of İstanbul) by turning the “given image qualities” of these plans into paintings. In doing so, while I use the traditional and contemporary references of painting, perhaps in a different way in each painting –unsupported by the rest-, I am concerned with achieving a high quality in technique.

Hakan Akçura
1996

Cover of catalogue and exhibition view

Istanbul 1-2

Madrid - Woman

Barcelona - Mole

Paris - Landscape

Antwerb - Bull

Vienna - Owl

Stockholm - Stock-man

Berlin - The flying mouse

Rome - Man

Lisbon - Mummy

Naples - White horse, she and blue

Warsaw - Cotton eyed old bitch

London - The patient with the green quilt

Copenhagen - Chess at the space

Amsterdam - Sad bat

Florence - Bird on a branch

Modena - The Cat

Leghorn - Old witch

Ancona - Vampire in the swaddling clothes

Milan - Gold Beetle

St. Petersburg - The fallen king

Zaragoza - Behind the red gate

Acrylic on paper pressed on canvas, 70x100 cm., 1996
Private collection