NOT A LIBRARY ARTIST EITHER…
SALT opened its doors with “I am not a studio artist,” the most comprehensive exhibition to date of Hüseyin Bahri Alptekin (1957-2007). Since then objects and documents from the artist’s collection have been presented at SALT Galata. So far three selections have been prepared by Alptekin’s spouse Camila Rocha and his intimate friends Ahmet Şenkart and Özgür Uçkan; the fourth selection is composed by Luchezar Boyadjiev, a colleague of Alptekin’s who shared many experiences and exhibition collaborations with him.
Opening at SALT Galata on March 26, the selection has been divided into three conceptual parts by Boyadjiev: the first comprises objects (badges, matchboxes) and personal correspondence (letters, postcards); the second, ephemera from exhibitions and conferences; and lastly documents, caviar boxes and labels in Bulgarian, Russian or Ukrainian, written in the Cyrillic alphabet.
Boyadjiev’s selection creates a narrative through Alptekin’s objects and ephemera to express complementary and contradictory ideas. Boyadjiev engages in a dialogue with these materials to suggest the reasons why Alptekin chose and collected them; he also detects traces of his own professional past, thanks to the projects the two artists worked on together.