Cevdet Erek
If distance only appears in relation to two points in space or time, the power to make it disappear usually happens in relation to two or more bodies. To make it disappear is at the same time to make it tangible.
A long distance relation is Cevdet Erek´s aesthetic approach to this phenomenon. It describes and emanates from its own specific conditions of production.
Based in Istanbul, he was asked to create a work for the Espacio de Experimentación Sonora without being able to visit it beforehand. He asked then to borrow the eyes, senses, brains, and experiences of those who could. Distance is present through this collaborative process but also in the displacement of its elements between separate points in the museum. This conversation with percussionist Iván Manzanilla (Mexico City, 1973) and architect Adalberto Charvel (San Diego, 1989) resulted in three interconected works based on Erek´s habit to unravel rhythms embedded in architecture and in life in general. The continuation of his ongoing project Rulers and Rhythms lies in between of two rhythm centered pieces conceived for MUAC: Measures Taken and Close Far Close. Each one is a reading of objects transformed either into a visual score or a transcription: a football supporter scarf and accoustic wall panels.
In Measures Taken, by turning the EES´s wooden elements designed to condition the acoustics both into a visual score and a percussion instrument to play it, Erek among other things points out how neutrality in sound spaces is inversely proportional to neutrality in the visual arts realm. The sound equivalent to a white cube is a space highly visually charged of elements and textures. A twelve-step pattern read in 8 different ways (left to right, right to left, top to bottom, bottom to top etc) each announcing the correlation between the a reading direction and the conception of time. The artist takes advantage of the non hierarchycal structure of the display of the speakers in the sound space to present a non hierarchycal experience of these different conceptions/directions of time.
A ruler that states the dates of Turkey´s recurrent cycle of coup d´etat, another with the Art Biennal years, the Ruler Summer-Winter, and the Ruler Quincena, among others, are part of the series Rulers and Rhythms presented outside the EES ,an open research Erek has being developing since 2007 on the wide spectrum of rhythms that surround us: everyday personal rhythms, historical, natural, art world rhythms , musical, economical, cultural etc.
In Close Far Close two instruments –a drum with two cymbals and a drum with a kornetto- that are borrowed from the culture of football stadiums are used to confront the rigor of the fixed temporal measures of Measures Taken and the regulated acoustics of the EES. In the performance, Cevdet Erek and Ivan Manzanilla continously change their positions (places) in musical time and physical space, a movement in tune with the nature of the whole project , a long distance relation highly based on collaboration and continuous improvisation.
Artist: Cevdet Erek (Istambul,1974) in collaboration with Iván Manzanillo (Mexico City,1973) and Adalberto Charvel (San Diego, 1989)
Curator: Alejandra Labastida
