Art Scene 2.0 - a copper kiss

The area around Istanbul Modern is called Tophane. Close to water's edge it nonetheless looks landward. Small streets are starting to fill with uberhip coffee shops and galleries between the motorcycle repair shops and other hardware stores.

Sarkis, the artist whose work I had seen at SALT Beyoğlu in April has a solo exhibition in a very nice artspace in Tophane called Galeri Mana.

The space is industrial chic and beautifully done - airy, simple, with nice exposed brick and sittable window ledges. Since this exhibition filled both the ground and first floor, the crowd and drinks were out in the street.

I went back the next day to photograph the space and Sarkis was there giving an interview upstairs, as he was scheduled to give a student talk nearby that afternoon.

While I am not sure what this work is about (other than it is what it is) I very much like the cymbal on a slowly oscillating chain made of connected short copper springs. The cymbal's excursion is only about 20cm and as it approaches the copper clad puck (same diameter as cymbal) there is the tiniest 'chunk' - not enough vibration to sound the cymbal, but a tiny cupping of air trapped within the void of the cymbal's concavity affecting the sound of gentle impact - a kiss, in fact.

I'm always a sucker for oil spread. In this case, however, I also very much like the way the work on paper is presented. The backboard is birch ply, encased in a perspex lid. The paper is very simply pinned to the back board. A nice compromise between just pinning a work to a wall and strangling a work behind glass, cutting off all escape with mitred frame corners.

These look like Muji pins to me.