The Hauntologist, 2020, BAK, Utrecht
The Hauntologists is curated by Julia Morandeira, curator of the post-academic program BAK Fellowship for Situated Practice and convener of the Utrecht cell, in dialogue with the local conveners: Zeyno Pekünlü, Istanbul cell hosted by the Istanbul Biennial Production and Research Programme, İKSV (Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts); Gesyada Siregar and Angga Wiyaga, GUDsel hosted by GUDSKUL in Jakarta; and the 2021/2022 BAK Fellows.
“One of the first spirits I encounter in the exhibition, Kerem Ozan Bayraktar’s Excerpts of Sea Matter, immediately engages with the alterity of the space. The outlines of black shapes, reminiscent of oil spills, mirror the cracks, splits and irregularities of BAK’s exhibition space. From the shadowy puddles of ink double-sided postcards emerge, reproductions of classical paintings on one side, textual fragments on the other. The texts conjure images of voyages at sea; the dark history of colonialism when the sea was employed by western Europeans to enslave, murder and dehumanize humans - hidden behind an unassuming still-life painting featuring a rose petal, cloves, nutmeg. In another doubling, the images are occluded, the black ink covering part or whole of the images and texts.”
Stefan Cammeraat, 11.11.2022 Metropolis M