We are living in strange days! Full of turmoil and disturbance. We don’t know what will happen next but we still have hope for peace and for a better future. If not for us, for our kids, for young souls living under the same sky, we want to stay strong and carry on.
So with these feelings, on Sunday, me and my husband, had a lovely walk along the Bosphorus and visited Sabancı Museum, for an unexpectedly rich exhibition of German Modernist, Heinz Mack, JUST LIGHT AND COLOUR.
Born in 1931, Heinz Mack, was one of the founders of international art network ZERO.
He studied not only art at Düsseldorf Academy of Art but philosophy at University of Cologne too… I remember his name and fame from a very interesting exhibition I saw at Guggenheim Museum in New York in 2014. When his solo exhibition started at Sabancı Museum, I postponed it every week thinking that we still had time. But yesterday was the last day, and –probably- the right day for us to visit the museum after the turbulent days of the past few days. I called the museum to ask if everything was open to public. Then I happily came to know that the museum decided to extend the dates of Mack’s exhibition.
Anyway, the opening statement of this exhibition was: The darkest point of the night, reminds us of its bright sister, namely, light. That was in harmony with my restless feelings…
And it went on: In the absence of form, light is merely brightness, just as there is no colour without light.
I went on reading: Regarding light as an infinite source of life and pursuing it with unshaken determination, has been both a personal approach and an influential artistic strategy for the pioneering artist of German modernism, Heinz Mack.
Within Mack’s oeuvre, in which the artist travels to regions where the natural expression of light is in its most powerful form, ranging from the North Pole to the Sahara Desert, light often becomes both the material as well as the work itself.
Visiting the exhibition, I met a tireless artist in search of beauty in all its froms, surrounded by light in every colour. My soul founded comfort and suddenly the world became a better place to live.
I talked to the Sabancı Museum this morning to ask what is the updated period of this exhibition. Good news! You can still visit it until August 21st!
Guest Contributor, İlknur Akman Erk @ilknurakmanerk