Osmanbey, İstanbul
For the third episode of Istanbul Stories, we are once again at Vahap Avşar’s studio in Osmanbey on a Saturday morning.
The studio has two separate entrances; the back door opens through a small garden into the ground floor of the building. This three-room space functions as both a living and working environment. In the first room, Vahap sleeps inside one of his own works, an installation in the form of a house that contains a bed.
In the largest room, the works spread across the space, forming a pattern of their own. Vahap welcomes us with fresh mulberries and coffee, served in ceramic cups of his own design.
Working between New York and Istanbul, the artist describes this studio as his “safe space” in the city. Blurring the boundaries between life and practice, Avşar defines his relationship with art in his own words: “It might sound exaggerated, but I can say that my art is my way of living.”
We talk with Vahap about belonging, the city, and the decisions that shape his life and practice.
Vahap Avşar was born in 1965 in Malatya. Between 1985 and 1989, he studied at Dokuz Eylül University’s Faculty of Fine Arts in Izmir. Here, he worked as an assistant in the sculpture studio of Cengiz Çekil, one of the prominent conceptual artists of Turkey. He lives and works in New York. Employing various disciplines, Vahap Avşar’s works are clearly influenced by conceptual art. The artist’s occasionally minimalist and shocking style conceals a critique of power relations, mechanisms of political repression, as well as socially violence and conflict.
Each month, our YouTube channel brings together conversations from artists’ inner worlds to stories of Istanbul.
A Film by ait istanbul & Poolfolks
Video Artists: Yiğit Demir, Kadir Özer
Photography: Kerem Günaydınlar
Artist Programming: Tuna Pektaş
Art Direction: Eylül Günaydınlar
Graphic Design: Kutay Yılmaz, Buğra Örs
Project Development: Darya Anzabi,
Selin Kantarcıoğlu, Zeynep Atav
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