Serkan Ozkaya (Turkish)
Bakers Apprentice, 2006
Serkan Ozkaya is a conceptual artist based in Istanbul, whose works are mainly about
appropriation and reproduction; they usually operate outside traditional spaces
for art.
Serkan Ozkaya was born in Istanbul, Turkey in 1973. He mastered in fine arts at
Bard College, New York. He has been an artist-in-residence at Ecole Regionale des
Beaux Arts de Nantes (2000 2001), at Rooseum in Malmo with the IASPIS grant (2002).
He has a Ph.D in German Language and Literature department at Istanbul University,
where he also earned his B.A. and M.A. Ozkaya is a fellow of the MacDowell Colony
in New Hampshire.
Artist's Statement
My main interest with [Baker's Apprentice] was the idea of a disaster and the beauty
in it.
I actually saw a young girl carrying all those egg-boxes and imagined what would
happen if she fell over with all of them. Then I realized that there is a certain
beauty in every kind of disaster. If only the eggs wouldn't fall and be smashed,
if only she wouldn't fall actually and stay in that moment, in between her routine
life and the disaster. I guess that's where the sublime lies somehow. The newspapers,
movies, books are full with disasters everyday and there is an undeniable beauty
in all of them; in the fire, plane crash etc. That's what attracts people. If only
in the end people wouldn't die and the actual damage wouldn't happen... That's I
guess the actual idea behind the Baker's Apprentice, to depict a moment of extraordinariness
without the loss, without the damage. Just the moment of flying, into void... (Sounds
like Yves Klein indeed!)
Exhibited Work
Bakers Apprentice, 2006
Fiber, eggs, acrylic paint