Dear,
Inkjet and pen ink on 47 sheets of copy paper
Dimensions variable
2010
The twenty-four anonymous, undated and highly personal letters that make up Dear, seem to be suspended in a first-draft state. Reading closely, it becomes clear that despite their epistolary form, these texts are not a correspondence, but rather traces of one writer's inward gaze. The letters disclose this writer's most private reflections while simultaneously challenging the authenticity of these feelings with analytic detachment. The typed texts have been anxiously marked up and corrected by hand, and in exasperation—a second-guessing that harangues the writer for breaks in logic, improper syntax, and evasive or vague passages. Fidgety revisions pause to smooth and polish acceptable phrases, or to comment that a passage exemplifies “the postmodern condition.” At one point, even the sentiment “I hope one day we can just let ourselves be ourselves around each other” has been worried with a complicated re-working. The act of writing becomes an egocentric exercise in self-reflexivity, rather than a means of communicating with another.
Installation view: Doublethink, Double Vision, Pera Museum, Istanbul, 2017. Photo by Uğur Ataç.
Installation view: Hot Spot Istanbul, Hauskonstruktiv, Zurich, 2013. Photo by Stefan Altenburger.
Installation view (detail): Hot Spot Istanbul, Hauskonstruktiv, Zurich, 2013. Photo by Stefan Altenburger.
Installation view: Dear, Walter C. Koerner Library at the University of British Columbia (as part of Morris and Helen Belkin Gallery's Art in the Library program), Vancouver, 2015.
