Elizabeth Wolfson: It seems to me that with the work in your most recent show, Homo Practicus, your attention has shifted, or rather narrowed, to focus on the concept and practice of design. Can you explain the impulse behind this shift?
Serkan Özkaya: Well, if we go back… I had made a performance or a temporary installation at the Archaeological Museum in Istanbul, many years ago. I had prepared a bubble, on cardboard, saying “Damn it’s hot!” or “It’s hot in here” or something like that. And when the guards weren’t looking, I put it on top of a lion, a ten thousand year old lion. So the lion was thinking “It’s really hot here.” And I thought it was funny. So it stayed there fifteen minutes or so, until they discovered it. But all these people, with their kids, doing their duty on a Sunday afternoon, taking them to the Archaeological Museum. So they were looking at this thing, then at this other thing, and then they were looking at my lion, and they were reading the sign, the bubble saying “It’s hot in here,” with no reaction. No reaction whatsoever. It’s clearly not archaeological, there’s no way it can be ten thousand years old.
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EW: And it didn’t occur to anyone that this was somehow out of place or not really part of the museum.
SO: Exactly. So I think that’s the state of mind that you are in, when you enter a sacred place like a museum or a gallery, something that is slightly above your class, it doesn’t matter who you are, and it just becomes alienating, by itself. As soon as you place an object, bodily, in a museum, it becomes a different thing, because people look at it, you know, it’s the old dilemma. And that kind of positioning really alienates the audience as well. And then audience has to react in an intellectual way—it’s as if you’re checking in your bag, when you enter a museum, it’s as if you also hang your body and all your senses at the register, because you can only approach the work in a purely intellectual manner, which I don’t think is fair, really. You’re not supposed to show any emotion.
EW: It’s completely sterile.
SO: So I think design is sort of one step down. Because everything is designed now. This table, the food, the fork…
EW: And of course that was the whole idea behind Bauhaus…
SO: Right, Bauhaus. [Laughs.] What a failure.
EW: So, at what point in your career was the lion incident?
SO: Oh, when I was a youngster. When I was still a revolutionary. [Laughs.] My revolutionary years.
EW: Then this impulse towards design isn’t something recent, it’s something that’s been a part of your work for a long time.
SO: Yeah. My first approach, or suggestion, was to work with a medium that is highly reproducible. And cheaply sold and bought, like a newspaper. Like an intervention with a newspaper turns it into a quasi-artwork and makes it accessible to many, many people for a cheap price. So you know that sculpture of mine, the dish, the dessert, shaped like a teddy bear’s head? [Bring Me the Head Of] With that particular sculpture, the demand and supply is one to one, it appears as many times as people order it at the restaurant. So you pay for it, ten dollars, twenty dollars, and then you devour it.
Bring Me the Head of… (2007). Photos by Michelle Garnaut
EW: So it’s an art experience that’s easily available and accessible on a mass scale.
SO: Well, it’s still… You have to go there, order it, pay for it. It’s also a culinary experience that fills you up, and the art part is there, the idea of the design of it, and then the conceptual framework is that it’s actually a possibility of a sculpture, it doesn’t exist until you order it. I only made the mold, I never made the sculptures. So there is no sculpture, only the idea of the sculpture. If no one went to the restaurant and ordered it, there would be no sculpture, there is only the idea of the sculpture.
EW: So I was thinking about these issues in conjunction with the new show, because there are what, six pieces in the show, only two of which are free standing sculptures; the other four are furniture.
Homo Practicus (2010)
SO: So the question was, how can you—or to turn it around, can you design a sculpture? Can you actually design a museum piece? Not an ordinary/kitschy sculpture, like an ornamental sculpture, that would be sold at Ikea or on the street, but a museum piece. Can you design it, and have it as a sculpture, and then have the same form as furniture? Or an umbrella holder?
EW: So you’re referencing that historical tension between sculpture, as a “high art” practice, and furniture, which is considered a completely different type of art, if art at all. In a museum…
SO: In a museum, we sit on it. At MoMA I sat on Josef Kosuth’s chair, One and Three Chairs. And the guard stopped me, he said, “You cannot sit on it, it’s an artwork.” I said, “Oh, I thought it was a chair.” After I did A Sudden Gust of Wind, the installation,I made a single sheet version of it out of metal, and boxed them, and manufactured them, mass-produced them. And they were sold at some stores. So I went to one of the stores one day, and the person working in the store was really happy to see me. There were two old ladies, in fur coats, looking at the piece. And she was like, “Here is the artist, this is his artwork, it’s mass-produced, blah blah blah,” and they were looking at it, turning it around, and saying “Okay but what is it? What is it? What is it? Oh okay, but what is it? What is it?” And after ten minutes of negotiation, one of the ladies says, “I got it!” And everyone looks at her, and she says, “It’s a tray.”
A Sudden Gust of Wind (2009) at Bilsar and (2010) DD172, New York. Photos by Baris Ozcetin and Gillian Steinhardt.
EW: Awesome.
SO: In Homo Practicus I tried to use the most banal version, most banal understanding, of the function and the design. The easiest design is to create a human form, the human figure. Just imagine all the figures—like, anything, salt shakers…
EW: The stick figure.
SO: I’m not sure, between the animal figure and the human figure, which is more basic, but I think the human figure is the easiest one, the most banal idea of design. With function, the most banal idea would be a chair, a chandelier, a lamp, something like that. So I tried to combine them.
EW: So why this emphasis on the banal? Just because it’s the most basic, the simplest unit?
SO: It’s the easiest way out. I’m lazy.
EW: Because actually, honestly, when I first saw the photos, I assumed it was some Keith Haring reference.
SO: Right, he’s trying develop the figure… Alessi, Philip Starck, many others no doubt… Yeah, Keith Haring, that’s one of my ripoffs.
EW: What’s interesting is there’s this intention to reduce the work to the most basic form, the lowest common denominator…
SO: [Laughs.] Thanks.
EW: [Laughs.]… Meant in the nicest way possible, of course. So on the one hand, there’s this idea of simplicity and accessibility. But on the other hand, it’s in this gallery, on the top floor of this unmarked building, and god willing you’ll sell them all at whatever price you’re asking for them, or a curator will come in a buy one for a museum, or a collection…
SO: Yeah but I don’t really care—I mean, of course I care about that, but…
EW: So you don’t care about what happens to the work after you make it.
SO: I do care, but I’m curious. I don’t think one is better than the other.
EW: But that’s the idea, right? it’s not that it’s just going to be up for a month, and then you’re going to put it on the curb.
SO: Yeah.
EW: I mean, I don’t have any grand point here. I’m just interested in that difference between the concept, the intention, and the practical experience of the work.
SO: Well, I’ve been showing around for almost twenty years now. I had my first show in 1992 or something. The first few years, it was like that, I hoped that someone would see the show, it would sell out, and maybe it is happening, maybe it’s not happening, but I have no idea. I’m really impatient. I’m impatient with the way in which I exhibit the work, I’m impatient in the way I sell it to the curator or whoever it is. So I can’t really care about that anymore, I just wanted to see it, in the gallery, in that set-up, and that’s about it. And the next step, yes, sure, someone will see it and… But no, I don’t really… Because I’ve done everything… Also, when someone else wants something from you, it’s somehow less satisfying. And when you try to do something, and then you manage, it’s more satisfying, even if it’s a lesser accomplishment. Maybe it’s just me, I don’t know.
EW: I understand what you’re saying. It’s not really a priority—it’s not part of the process for you.
SO: I think so. That’s what I think. [Laughs.] But maybe I’m full of shit.
EW: [Laughs.] Far be it from me to suggest that you’re full of shit. Anyway, that’s all I have to say on that topic. Unless you have anything else you’d like to say about the nature of design.
SO: Oh no. I hate it.
EW: You hate design? Despite the fact that you’re totally engaged with it? That must be sad—that must be a sad existence for you.
SO: No, no, no, I mean I hate the idea of design, that tries to make everything stylish and unique.
EW: But what about the process of design?
SO: What about it?
EW: Because… Again, in terms of the molds, in Bring Me the Head Of..., as you said, the concept is that there’s no sculpture there. That’s the work.
SO: But the idea is there.
EW: Of course, the idea is there.
SO: The negative space is there.
EW: Yeah, sure.
SO: You just have to fill it out.
EW: But in terms of…
SO: It’s all about seduction, I think. Design is all about seducing the viewer, the audience.
EW: But that’s what’s really interesting about the Homo Practicus pieces. I think they’re very seductive. They’re really glossy, you really want to touch them. I really wanted to touch them.
SO: You can’t imagine what people have been doing with them.
EW: I’m sure!
SO: Oh man. Yesterday, actually, the gallery coordinator called me and told me that there were some forty-something year old women, three or four of them, doing all kinds of weird things with them—they cracked one of them.
EW: Oh no! That’s terrible! What were they doing?
SO: Taking pictures.
EW: Were they standing on them?
SO: No, just some weird positions. I don’t know, there are a lot of people taking pictures with them… But these women were really like raping the little guys.
EW: But they are genderless, they are really sexless.
SO: Yeah, yeah.
EW: Which is interesting that they are so seductive. That something so anonymous and sexless…
SO: In Turkish we call them “practical men.”
EW: What does that mean? Is that the Turkish phrase for sexless?
SO: Well “men” can be used for “mankind,” or it can be used for men only. So it can be sexless and/or sexist. So the translation of it means “practical men.” Which brings to mind that they’re masculine.
EW: Oh right, “homo,” from Latin, meaning man.
SO: Homo meaning man, but also mankind. It’s always about men. And in the Bible…
EW: It’s like the universal “we”—
SO: —referring to all the people.
EW: So the figures, they are seductive, because they’re so glossy, and smooth…
SO: [Laughs.] Yeah, keep going…
EW: [Laughs.] They are! And they just have this really pleasing texture. It’s like with [Claus] Oldenburg pieces, you just want to touch them because they’re so tactile. So there’s this very seductive quality, but then they’re totally anonymous, from a purely visual perspective, seemingly sexless, and there’s this emphasis on anonymous servitude, labor, and not just labor, but pain, physical pain. You have things being impaled, and you have things being penetrated, and hit, with physical impact. So there’s an additional experience of intense pain associated with these works.
SO: Yeah, they’re little slaves.
EW: That’s why the forty-year-old ladies were so excited by them.
SO: But they’re happy to do that. The umbrella holder is the happiest one.
EW: Of course. Absolutely. There’s no doubt. So do you know if any of the work has sold yet?
SO: Yeah, some. Actually the free standing one has sold, the self-portrait has sold.
EW: Ahh, this is a self-portrait?
SO: The lone non-practical homo.
EW: You know, I actually didn’t even look at the titles list.
SO: All the titles are the same. Homo Practicus: Table. Homo Practicus: Umbrella Holder.
EW: Well that’s interesting, that that’s the one that sold.
SO: You know, by definition sculpture isn’t good for anything. Like the urinal [Marcel Duchamp’s Fountain]—if you can’t pee in it, it must be a sculpture.
EW: If you can’t use it, it must be art.
SO: But if you want to sell your sculpture in a store, it better be a tray, or something.
E: As you’ve learned. You’re the master maker of trays.
SO: Yeah.
EW: Well, what about your can, your sardine can [Today Could Be a Day of Historical Importance, a book dedicated to Ozkaya’s eight year project of the same title that produced hand-drawn copies of the front page of various newspapers worldwide] that no one will open?
Today Could Be a Day of Historical Importance, (2010).
SO: Oh, no, I know. What a shame. It’s all the graphic designer’s work, I think. I let him free—I mean we worked together for many, many months, for that—I’ve been working with him for a long time actually, we did four or five books together. And he’s great, but with this we had the opportunity to use a lot of pictures, it was a project that’s been going on for eight years or something. So we had a lot of text on it. All kinds of materials, so he could put something together which was really substantial, in the sense of volume. But then—when we’re together, we start triggering each other, and he just went crazy from day one. When he put that little eyelash, that little hair on the first page—
EW: [Laughs.] And it was all downhill from there. One day it’s an eyelash, the next it’s in a can.
SO: [Laughs.] Because maybe a normal, ordinary writer or artist would take it as a joke. Maybe he meant it as a joke. And I was like “Oh, that’s good. That’s great actually. That’s really funny.” So he probably tried to surprise me, out of frustration, trying to figure out how much further he could push it.
EW: Yeah, like “How much more will he agree to?” You’re just so amiable.
SO: Yeah, and the next thing you know, you can’t read it. It’s in a box. It’s in a f—— box. So all my friends at the New York Times, I sent copies to them. A couple of months later I went to visit them, and I saw the box sitting on their desk, because I was hoping for a review. And I said, “Didn’t you guys open it?” And they said “No, no, no, I’m saving it for my daughter’s education.”
SO: So it was totally a design project, that book. But I really enjoyed it. It’s a bit too much, to my taste, but it’s pretty, I think.
EW: So that’s design, and you enjoyed that.
SO: I really enjoyed it.
EW: So how did you—I mean, you didn’t sculpt those fiberglass men.
SO: You bet I did.
EW: No, you didn’t.
SO: Well I worked on it, I advised the person who was designing it on the computer, I said “A little more like that… You remember that cartoon character? Hands like that.” I made the decisions.
EW: I’m not suggesting that you just completely Jeff Koons-ed it—but clearly you weren’t in there with—however you make fiberglass stuff, I’m not even sure how you make it—I guess you pour it, or you cut it…
SO: Oh, I don’t know.
EW: [Laughs.] So neither of us has any idea how they were made.
SO: No, I know. I didn’t do it. But I mean, I inspired it. I’m the only reason it’s there. Arda and the guys designed it. They did a good job. I mean, in the end, they did what I wanted.
EW: Well right, of course.
SO: But that’s bullshit. No one can do you what you want. Even you can’t do what you want.
EW: I suppose that’s true. The futility of what you see in your mind, versus…
SO: You don’t see anything in your mind. It’s just this electrical thing that you feel… It’s all psychology. It doesn’t have to make sense.
EW: [Laughs.] Maybe… I’m pretty sure I see things. I’m pretty sure you probably see things too—it’d be pretty difficult to be an artist and not see things.
SO: Well yeah, tell me about it. [Laughs.]
EW: This brings up another question I had. You’ve mentioned before that you don’t like the idea of having a studio.
SO: Yeah.
EW: Why? Most artists love their studio.
SO: Oh no, no, no. I’m trying to be… I mean I used to be, when I was a kid, even before the youngster years, I was… how do you say—I was an inventor?
EW: Tinkering?
SO: Yeah, I had all these inventions. But that was when I was five, six years old. I had all these books filled with stupid inventions, funny inventions, and small and big, like harbors, and libraries…
EW: That’s very ambitious.
SO: Or a pen. Anyway, so then I was more into art, and I was a painter, basically. So I worked a lot with that. And after adolescence and having lived for three years as a painter, I developed this dislike for painting, because the canvas becomes like a mirror. And I didn’t like that idea or that situation. It just drove me mad, really. I think all painters are crazy. Self-obsessed, crazy people.
EW: Because they’re painting what they see in their minds.
SO: Well, you’re alone in the studio and you have this canvas, and then you’re supposed to do something, no matter what. Even if you’re developing a project, you’re just doing something with your hands. It’s a direct part of yourself, your hand, and you believe that your hand can do it better than anything else. I didn’t like that situation. It was just… I would probably have ended up in a mental institution…
EW: Nervous breakdown.
SO: So no more studio. Because I don’t really want to make things myself. Maybe a model. But the ideal situation is that I have the idea, and then I go right to the producer. Be it a dish, or a giant sculpture, or a design object, I want to go right to the person whose going to build it. I can build it if it’s easy, but most of the time I need some other people. Because I can’t cook—well I can, but you should have seen the rice sculptures I made for the teddy bear [Bring Me the Head Of…].
EW: I bet that was cute!
SO: [dismayed groan.] No. Terrrible.And I love collaboration. In everything. I love the work—or the idea, the idea is more important than the work, and the idea gets liberated. You just say something, and then it goes. That’s the liberation part. The moment you describe your idea, that’s when you set it free. You should set it free. But a painting is like putting it in cage. Making something sacred like that, you touched it with the hand of the master, that’s like putting it in a cage. Which could be fine, in our age, it gets reproduced and all kinds of things. But I’m not that patient, as I said. I like being able to just describe something to other people, and then if they see it, if I can convince them…
EW: Or they can convince you.
SO: Yeah, exactly. That’s the negotiation part. Like with the newspaper project [Today Could Be a Day of Historical Importance], I really like—a lot of people asked me, after the showed the pieces to them, “Oh, so did you decide what the headlines were?” No! “Did you know?” No, I had no idea. Whatever the news was that day. So you have no idea what you’re going to draw, in the end. I like that kind of freedom, or I don’t know what it’s called…
EW: It’s sort of like the opposite of being a control freak. With artists, so much of what they do is controlling their work.
SO: They think they are. Little do they know. There’s no way you can control anything, let alone your artwork.
EW: But isn’t that why a lot of artists become artists? Because in life of course you can never control anything, but if you’re an artist, you have your studio and you can control what happens in your studio, and within the canvas you can control what happens. So it’s the ultimate…
SO: Like you’re the god, and it’s your world.
EW: Yeah, exactly.
SO: I don’t know. I don’t like the idea of the god, and the world. I don’t know about that. That scares me.
E: But that’s part of why—going back to design versus “high” art—it’s the aura, that’s what makes—
SO: Right. That’s why it’s in a gallery.
EW: Exactly. Or a museum.
SO: That’s the art. Selling the museum the piano. [The Piano Lifted With the Aid of Three Balloons, which Özkaya recently installed at the Istanbul Museum of Modern Art.] [Laughs.] You know? That’s it.
E: [Laughs.] There’s no doubt about that. So tell me that story, how did you convince them…?
SO: No, no, I’m an artist, I’m known as an artist. So whatever I do—whatever I claim as art, is at least looked at, and considered as art. So I’m trying to be more and more naïve—well maybe not naïve, but more and more clear, and straight to the point, lose all the “edgy,” artsy-fartsy stuff. I’m trying to make something that almost anybody can understand and participate in. It’s just a matter of situating it—you can at least argue that this is art, or that is art, and make people think about it. But then at the same time it’s something that appeals… So that’s another way I’m trying to push—make something that’s easy to understand, and that’s not only in a gallery, for a crowd that is used to art, but also anywhere. Or in the gallery, but to a crowd which is not really used to that.
EW: So in terms of public art then—your David piece was sort of a public art thing… [David, designed for the 9th Istanbul Biennial, but collapsed during construction.]
David (2005). Photos by Baris Ozcetin and Melis Terzioglu
SO: Public disaster! It was a public disaster.
EW: Well it was, the one that collapsed, but you’re redoing it in Eskisehir [Turkey]. So, is it going to be outside?
SO: Yes, in Eskisehir it’ll be a public piece. But I’m also rebuilding it for a museum in the States, 21st C. Museum.
EW: Oh, where’s that?
SO: It’s in Kentucky. But yeah, in Eskisehir it’s supposed to be in a public place, but I doubt that they’re ever going to put it up.
EW: What do you think is going to happen?
SO: Oh, people will just burn it, riots. They will hate it. But that’s because it’s Turkey, because it’s a naked male figure. And then it’s the Jewish prophet. These days people [in Turkey] really don’t like Jews.
EW: But within Islam, isn’t the Old Testament at least theoretically part of the theology?
SO: Yes, but these days it’s because of the government. And also because of Israel’s policies, and here it’s read in an even harsher way…But also, if they would think about the prophet David, seeing him as a gigantic naked boy, that wouldn’t make sense. Even if there were a Jewish majority in Turkey, they would go and burn it. That’s what happened when—you know Florence and Jerusalem are sister cities? And for the 500th anniversary of Michelangelo’s David, Florence gave a replica of David to Jerusalem. And they sent it back. They said, “This is not our prophet, are you kidding us?” They didn’t like it!
EW: So for Eskisehir, you’re making it, or it’s being made, whatever.
SO: It’s done, it’s completely done.
EW: Oh, where is it?
SO: It’s in storage. In a studio.
EW: Is it going to stay there?
SO: I’m afraid so, yeah.
EW: That’s really sad.
SO: Yeah well, you know. We’ll see. Maybe they’ll erect it one day… But public art, no one knows about public art. And I don’t think public art is that easy anymore, just put a sculpture outside. That’s not exactly public art. But to my understanding, my newspaper project was public art.
EW: Ah, this is what you’ve been told?
SO: No, that’s what I think. If I had to classify it, I would call it a public art project. Or you know, even the food, the dish project. Some of it’s public art. But I like the idea that you have to pay for it, even if it’s half a dollar for the newspaper. Then you give something in order to have it. It makes it–it’s not free, given to you on the street. I don’t think that’s really public art. That’s like what public sculpture is, even if you care or you don’t care, you have to see it. I don’t want anything to be free. You need to do something to have it. Even it’s just pressing a button, or calling a number, or going to a restaurant. There needs to be an effort.
