The Skin We Live In provides a comprehensive look into Koray Ariş’s six-decade-long sculptural practice through themes of figure, skin, sound, movement and balance that are pivotal in his oeuvre. The approximatively 300 works and objects on display embody a communal territory where the age-old distinctions between sculpture, object and body dissolve, and where sculpture takes on a carnal dimension.
The Skin We Live In draws from the ties Koray Ariş has continuously forged between art, life and nature in his studio in Çatalca (Istanbul) where he has been working since 1982. Embracing the intricacy of this space and the proximities it fosters among various forms and objects, the exhibition traces Ariş’s distinctive contributions to sculpture by means of materials such as wood, metal, found objects and particularly leather. The non-chronological trajectory conceived by Selen Ansen establishes new connections by creating a dialogue between the artist’s sculptures which are reminiscent of bodily forms and inspired by nature, and his series incorporating sound and movement. Drawing attention to Ariş’s sensual approach to sculpture and his devotion to matter through the traces his hands relentlessly leave on surfaces, the exhibition embodies a realm where the natural and the artificial intertwine, various processes converge, materials merge, and forms evolve. The early figurative sculptures and busts, the abstract heads, the faces becoming animal / stone, the stones becoming bone, the bodies becoming trees / shells, the reliefs transforming into torsos / backs, all these forms shedding figuration prompt us to depart from the conventional definitions of the object we call “sculpture” and to consider anew the act of sculpting.
Following the exhibition, an extensive publication will be released with new texts by Selen Ansen, Francesco Albano, Sevinç Çalhanoğlu, Necmi Sönmez, and Yaşam Şaşmazer, along with archival essays by Ali Akay and Antonio Del Guercio. The book, designed by Emre Çıkınoğlu, will also provide a visual documentation of the exhibition with photographs taken by Hadiye Cangökçe and flufoto (Barış Aras and Elif Çakırlar).
Press release from Arter
Image: From left to right: Koray Ariş. Semra Eren’s bust. 1970. Bronze. 43 x 25 x 25 cm. Semra Eren Collection. Untitled. 2021–24. Stone, leather 2 pieces; Dimensions variable. Photography by flufoto / Barış Aras and Elif Çakırlar
