photo credit: Kayhan Kaygusuz
GÖKHAN BALKAN
THE THIRD NATURE
11.01 – 17.02.2018
More than 40 of the artist’s work will be presented, in which Balkan explores nature, body, society and the urban city phenomenon. The artist, whose work is mainly composed of image-transfer on canvas, among other mediums including installation, statues and photo- manipulation invites the viewer to discover ‘The Third Nature’.
Balkan, while carrying out an analogy between the city and the human form which, from its creation, has been subject to social constructionism, questions the relationship between post human cities and bodies, through the concepts of ‘Truth’, ‘Reality’ and ‘Virtual Reality’.
Using the rawness, fluidity and mutability of the human form, which echoes the texture of earth with its dough-like nature, Balkan visualizes the process of how human bodies in the post-industrial era become playgrounds for the authority figures. Drawing attention to the idea that such norms emposed on individuals can also be observed within the process of urbanization, the artist links modern and post-modern urbanization to social body construction from various perspectives.
The concept of ‘Second Nature’ , first introduced by Kant, and described as ‘an ability to create another form of nature using the very material derived from nature itself’, presents one that is made of meat, bone, steel, iron and plastic. Whilst basing his starting point on Kant’s ‘Second Nature’, Gökhan Balkan examines the Body, City and Language trilogy within the design of an ‘anthropocene’ life. In addition, the artist envisions how humans slowly withdraw from the Truth and Reality, and transform post human, beast-like creatures made of concrete and silicone.
Opening the idea of post-human nature, defined as ‘The Third Nature’ for discussion, Gökhan Balkan says; ‘ In today’s world where technology is rapidly increasing, and the lines between mind/body and space/body is gradually blurred, a new concept of ‘Sinister Virtuality’ is introduced beyond ‘Truth’ and ‘Reality’.