Dealing with a Statement
“The objects I started to work on are variable, as simple as possible, and reproducible. They could, for example, be objects from an office, since they are very common and practical. They are modules and can always be rearranged into new combinations and positions.
I leave the interpretation open to the recipient, although I do arrange them in a certain way, with a graphical focus in mind. At the beginning of my work process I transform my idea into a drawing, to help me structure it. Sometimes the drawing itself turns into the main part of the artwork and I build the sculpture around it. Inspired by architecture, space, geometry and three-dimensional models.
The simplicity of these basic geometrical shapes should demonstrate the principles of rationalized modifications. I like to follow several inspirational sources in order to find different answers to a certain question. My interest is not to produce serial pieces, since I always try to stay open minded to new influences for new topics.
Growing up in a capitalistic society, where raising production is the main goal, I prefer to use cheap and very elementary materials like paper, pen, pencil, wood or metal in my art production. The former categorizations of the arts no longer exist, no new-isms will be necessary. Everything will be possible for the artist of the future.
What is the social function of art now? I agree with Charlotte Posenenske stating that art cannot solve urgent social problems. Nevertheless art contributes this: New investments of desire could become possible through art – autonomous of competition!1”
Wien/Berlin, April 4, 2013 Ahu Dural, Statement
*referring to Charlotte Posenenskes “Statement” [Manifesto], Art international no.5 (May 1968)
1 Assertion inspired by Franco “Bifo” Berardi, The Soul at Work. From Alienation to Autonomy, Los Angeles 2009.
The Office Module installation was placed in a room, which was basically nothing more than an empty glass cube that was used as an administrative office half a year before. These offices are inside and not everybody has access to them. Charlotte Posenenske showed her works outside, positioned on the street. In my opinion, her objects were some kind of trigger, which were a link from the hidden inner world to the outside world. They remind us of huge industrial places, where work is physically hard.
Choosing file folders and carpet squares as modules for an installation is an act of producing a gap between the inside and the outside world.
Inside is the institution and outside is a play field of decisions. Bureaucracy is necessary to be able to apply to an institution. Everyone knows that! But is it really like that?
Today information is available to everyone, but not everybody has the possibility and knowledge to get to it. The success can depend on certain social contacts and certain skills. If you look at the system of an office, there are still analog collections of data such as file folders. Especially for large institutions like an art university, bureaucracy is indispensable.
Ahu Dural (born 1984 in Berlin) is a German-Turkish artist known for her large-scale installations. Her artistic practice investigates the intersections between modernist architecture and her biographical history. After completing her studies in the department for illustration at the University of the Arts in Berlin, she continued her education at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna in the class of Monica Bonvicini until 2016. Dural lives and works in Berlin.