These text this text was prepared as part of the exhibition "Amongst All These Ongoing Things"
I : One thing I know for sure is that this exhibition was born out of the work “Today and always I will trust myself”. Therefore, why don't we start with that work?
Merve Denizci: Yes, that's right. The starting point of this exhibition is the work in question. But of course, there was a preparation in my mind about what this work evoked in me. This preparation developed through an artist residency program I participated in at the School of Visual Arts in 2018. Namely, the emphasis on physicality in the works of Mary Corse, Agnes Martin, Ellsworth Kelly and others that I encountered in the contemporary art museums I visited during my stay in New York, which excludes the fact that the painting creates an illusion and occupies a space like any other object. Of course, it is not possible to perceive this emphasis when you look at the images of the same paintings on the internet, so it was important to encounter them there. Maybe the artist didn't have a primary aim to emphasize the physicality of the painting, but this is what I understood not by thinking but by experiencing and this is what opened a new path for me; the physicality of the painting. That is, the fact that it now occupies a space there, that it has a mass like us or other objects.
I : So how does this relate to the painting in question? Because the painting, which is the starting point of this exhibition, actually has an illusion and if you ask me, it gets its effect from this illusion.
M.D. : Yes, you're right, that's exactly where I wanted to go. In this painting there is a big mass that opens outwards. This mass comes towards the viewer and creates a pressure on him. The paintings that create illusions mostly move inwards if we consider the canvas frame as a window. After I made this painting, I came to a distinction: an illusion that moves inward through the window, pure color surfaces that leave the illusion outside and emphasize that the painting is a surface, and a convex illusion that moves outward with an opposite illusion. Therefore, such an analysis based on my own experience has led me to make works in which I care about showing that painting is a surface, that it has a thickness. Of course, there are other reasons for this that we need to talk about.
I : Yes, I know, we should definitely talk about them, but there was an object that you took as a reference while making this painting. I think it is important to talk about it first.
M.D. : Of course, the biggest factor in the formation of this exhibition was the pandemic; it was during the pandemic that I encountered the reference object you mentioned again. Namely; I stayed in my room, which had not changed since my adolescence, in the family house that I returned to for a while with the real estate crisis that was felt more and more with the pandemic. The large corner wardrobe, whose shadow was on me throughout my adolescence, especially at night, was controlling my dreams again after a long time. Due to the small size of the room, this closet seemed even bigger and more majestic than it actually was. That must be why, with the influence of my rebellious adolescent nature, I had stuck a sticker from a magazine on the wardrobe that read “I will trust myself today and always”. It is still on the wardrobe. During the pandemic, the lockdown imposed by the state and some of Turkey's ongoing political problems based on authority since the beginning of the pandemic made people feel a serious pressure in total, and it was as if this closet was the embodiment of that pressure. This is precisely why I painted the L-shaped corner wardrobe outwards, as opposed to what it actually is. Thus, as I mentioned before, with a reverse illusion, the painting seems to come outwards, towards the viewer. Just like the effect of the wardrobe.
I: So, is the bench (or should I call it a couch?) placed in front of the painting an attempt to recreate this room? Doesn’t this placement dictate the angle at which the viewer should look at the painting?
M.D. : Perhaps it does. Honestly, I hadn’t thought about that until you mentioned it. I designed that functional object, which lies somewhere between a bench and a psychoanalyst’s couch, with these ideas in mind: Firstly, yes, it was inspired by the bed in that room—I’ll get to that. Beyond that, the process began with reconsidering my relationship with couches after the pandemic. Using a couch to sit or lie on in an exhibition came from this reflection. During the pandemic-induced real estate crisis, I lived in a shop that functioned as my home, studio, and project space. Spending so much time on the couch, even sleeping on it, made it an essential companion object in my life, deserving contemplation. Even now, when I’m not forced to, I still prefer sleeping on a couch. Unlike a bed, which is used solely for sleeping and involves a closed-off, isolated activity, a couch is a more open, unpredictable piece of daily life furniture. You lie down to think, dream, and perhaps fall asleep as you wish.
Thus, I had two reasons for placing this functional object in front of the painting: First, to evoke a similar feeling to what I experienced with the wardrobe image, symbolizing the subconscious pressures awakened during the pandemic. Second, to propose a lounging couch as an alternative to benches often found in museums and galleries. Based on my personal experience, whether it’s a large or small exhibition, the energy spent getting to the venue, the mental engagement during the exhibition, or simply the fatigue of being awake and active during the day, I always feel the need to lie down at some point. I believe we need more of these companion objects in public spaces.
I: One thing I’m certain of is that this exhibition was born from the work *"Today and Always, I Will Trust Myself." So, what do you think about starting with that piece?
M.D.: Yes, that’s true. This work is indeed the starting point of the exhibition. However, I must admit that I already had a preparation in my mind regarding what this piece evoked in me. This preparation evolved through an artist residency program I attended in 2018 at the School of Visual Arts. During my time in New York, the works I encountered in contemporary art museums—by artists such as Mary Corse, Agnes Martin, and Ellsworth Kelly—emphasized the physicality of painting. They disregarded the illusionistic nature of painting and highlighted how paintings, like other objects in a room, occupy space. Of course, you can’t perceive this emphasis by looking at these paintings through the internet; being physically present with them was crucial. While the artists may not have had an explicit intention to highlight the physicality of painting, this was what I grasped through experience rather than thought, and it opened up a new path for me—the physicality of painting. It’s about how the painting exists in space, with mass, like us or other objects.
I : How does this relate to the mentioned painting? Because, as the starting point of this exhibition, this work actually creates an illusion, and if you ask me, its effect stems from that illusion.
M.D. : You’re right, and that’s precisely where I was headed. In this painting, there’s a large mass that protrudes outward, coming toward the viewer and creating a sense of pressure. Illusionistic paintings, if we consider the canvas frame as a window, usually move inward. After creating this painting, I realized a distinction: between an illusion that moves inward through the window and flat color surfaces that leave the illusion behind and emphasize the painting as a surface. Conversely, there is the outward-moving, convex illusion that this painting presents. This analysis led me to prioritize showing the painting’s thickness and its surface in my subsequent works. Of course, there are other reasons we need to discuss as well.
I : Yes, I know, and we should definitely discuss those. But I think it’s important to first talk about the object you referenced while creating this painting.
M. D. : Of course. The pandemic was the greatest factor in the creation of this exhibition. My encounter with the object you’re referencing happened because of the pandemic. Due to the real estate crisis that became more pronounced during the pandemic, I temporarily moved back to my family home, staying in my childhood room that hadn’t changed since my teenage years. The large corner wardrobe, whose shadow loomed over me throughout my adolescence, returned to haunt my dreams after a long hiatus. The small size of the room made the wardrobe appear even larger and more imposing. Perhaps because of this—and influenced by my rebellious teenage nature—I had stuck a sticker on it that read "Today and Always, I Will Trust Myself." It’s still there. During the pandemic, the government’s stay-at-home orders and Turkey’s longstanding authoritarian tendencies made me feel a profound and collective sense of pressure, as if the wardrobe embodied this pressure. That’s why I painted the L-shaped corner wardrobe as protruding outward, contrary to its actual form. Thus, as I mentioned earlier, it appears to come toward the viewer with a reversed illusion—just like the wardrobe’s effect.
I : So, is the bench (or should I call it a couch?) placed in front of the painting an attempt to recreate this room? Doesn’t this placement dictate the angle at which the viewer should look at the painting?
M.D. : Perhaps it does. Honestly, I hadn’t thought about that until you mentioned it. I designed that functional object, which lies somewhere between a bench and a psychoanalyst’s couch, with these ideas in mind: Firstly, yes, it was inspired by the bed in that room—I’ll get to that. Beyond that, the process began with reconsidering my relationship with couches after the pandemic. Using a couch to sit or lie on in an exhibition came from this reflection. During the pandemic-induced real estate crisis, I lived in a shop that functioned as my home, studio, and project space. Spending so much time on the couch, even sleeping on it, made it an essential companion object in my life, deserving contemplation. Even now, when I’m not forced to, I still prefer sleeping on a couch. Unlike a bed, which is used solely for sleeping and involves a closed-off, isolated activity, a couch is a more open, unpredictable piece of daily life furniture. You lie down to think, dream, and perhaps fall asleep as you wish.
Thus, I had two reasons for placing this functional object in front of the painting: First, to evoke a similar feeling to what I experienced with the wardrobe image, symbolizing the subconscious pressures awakened during the pandemic. Second, to propose a lounging couch as an alternative to benches often found in museums and galleries. Based on my personal experience, whether it’s a large or small exhibition, the energy spent getting to the venue, the mental engagement during the exhibition, or simply the fatigue of being awake and active during the day, I always feel the need to lie down at some point. I believe we need more of these companion objects in public spaces.
I : I think we've dwelled enough on this piece, which I consider the cornerstone of the exhibition, but there's still something on my mind. When I look at the other pieces in the exhibition, I sense a structure that is sometimes found, sometimes relational, interacting with other pieces, and occasionally even coincidental. However, this piece appears to stand quite autonomously. What are your thoughts on that?
M.D. : Honestly, I don’t think about it too much. The inner-outer dialectic (which we can also refer to as public-private space) that has been central to my work for a long time became even more prominent during the pandemic. For me, this piece is about how the issues we face in private spaces are deeply connected to the public sphere and how the external world affects our inner lives. That’s why, in the structure of Martch Gallery, which is divided into separate rooms, it felt so appropriate, almost serendipitous, that this piece was placed in a room separated from the others by a doorway.
I : A large part of the exhibition consists of installations. They are fragmented and scattered, yet perceived as a whole through their color relationships or placement.
M.D. : The objecthood of painting, as I mentioned earlier, has been something I’ve been contemplating for a while. The reason for this is to underline the commonalities between the object of painting and other objects, highlighting their equality through these shared traits. I think Frank Stella, the muse of minimalism, also aimed to deconstruct the exclusivity of the canvas when he emphasized its shape. This effort is reflected in his statement: *"I want to paint like a house painter, just like someone painting walls."*
I : Yes, with this approach, Stella inspired Donald Judd and paved the way for minimalism in a sense. But when I look at Judd’s works, the first thing that comes to mind is the physicality of the work and its relationship with the space.
M.D. : Minimalism reduces the artwork to an object. It proposes industrial, reproducible objects that distance themselves from the artist’s handcraft. This approach, which excludes illusion, naturally aims to communicate with its surroundings and avoid autonomy. I think the reason Judd couldn’t fully reflect this approach in his works is the presence of painterly elements in them that create an illusion of depth. While I agree, I’d also say that a similar illusion exists in architecture. The mere fact that something has a physical structure doesn’t mean it won’t create illusions. For instance, imagine square columns extending into the distance at equal intervals. Inevitably, when we look ahead from our vantage point, an illusion will occur, just as with perspective in painting. This is where I started thinking about works that combine illusionary painting with various materials. Just as materials like metal or wood take their place in the network of relationships with their inherent identities, illusionary painting could contribute to this network with its own identity. That’s how I conceived the wall-mounted work made of various materials. I kept revisiting it, adding and removing elements.
I : I remember how frustrated you were with this piece…
M.D. : I’m sorry. Even as I write this, I still feel the same frustration because this piece will probably continue to evolve and change even after the exhibition ends. In the “Stray Eye” exhibition, I wanted to design a wall-mounted object inspired by the modernist structure of İ.M.Ç., which has been a source of fascination for me for some time. I included the reflective surface and zigzag form that Doğancan Yılmaz used in his installation “Complex” in 2023, based on the zigzag forms found in the architectural plans of İ.M.Ç. In addition to the equally divided zigzag form, the work consisting of wooden slats and partitions is in a certain proportion. So it is obvious that it was calculated and designed with a mind. There is something thought out, calculated, more rational than the natural flow of life. And there are overlapping layers of paint and various materials trying to break this rationality. For the first time, I also used a letter in the work. I don’t know if it’s because I’m so familiar with the initial of my name, but I find the shape of the letter “M” quite captivating, so I wanted to use it. Of course, this letter inevitably evokes an entirely different realm. It’s neither a symbol nor an illusion nor a material. It’s an abstract form belonging to the written expressions of the language we use to communicate. Therefore, a letter that appears incongruously in a painting would prevent you from immersing yourself in the “landscape.” At the same time, it would inevitably weave a new network of relationships with the other elements present (reflective surfaces, wood, paint, plaster, etc.). Perhaps it will come together with another object in another exhibition, creating new networks. My focus is less on the object itself and more on these networks. I’ve been interested in how objects and everything else occupying space relate to each other. How much these things can exist without one another and how they facilitate each other’s existence is something I’ve been contemplating for a while.
I : This reminds me of Judith Butler’s remarks in her 2020 interview with activist, writer, and journalist Masha Gessen about her then-new book *The Force of Nonviolence.* In the interview, Butler discusses the fallacy of the liberal individualist tradition, which assumes that individuals are radically separate from other lives. She gives the example of collaborating with the pavement, her shoes, and her physiotherapist on her way to the interview, saying she wouldn’t be there without them. I remember you were deeply affected by this.
M.D. : I definitely was. Moreover, the understanding that everything exists in an interconnected way and that this is inevitable became even more apparent during the pandemic. It felt like a new awakening. The way the virus spread from person to person, the necessity of collaboration to combat it, and how a tiny virus posed such a threat to humanity and caused such devastation inevitably overturned the liberal individualist perspective Butler critiques.
I recently came across a parallel scientific discussion after encountering Butler’s interview. Neurosurgeon Prof. Türker Kılıç, in a science program, mentioned how the pandemic underscored the significance of *connectivity* as a scientific methodology that has been studied since 2015. He noted that Giorgio Parisi, who won the Nobel Prize in 2021, had been working on this connectivity methodology for years. Instead of moving from individual units to the whole, this methodology seeks to understand the relationships between units, focusing on their interactions. This reminds me of Butler’s critique of liberal individualism.
I : I think your primary motivation for focusing on the objectification of painting in your doctoral thesis stems directly from the concept of collaboration or interconnectedness that Butler mentioned.
M.D. : Yes, the reason I’m interested in the physicality of painting is because this quality is inherent in everyday objects, our bodies, walls, streets, cities—everything. It’s a shared characteristic. A painting, like everything else, is fundamentally a mass, a tangible object. When viewed this way, we can see that a painting, as an art object, occupies a place in our lives just like everything else, engaging in a physical relationship with space, other objects, and ourselves. After all, an art object is born out of both physical and intellectual networks and takes its place in our lives just like other things we interact with.
Looking back at these thoughts now, I can understand why I’ve been so drawn to interconnectedness as a scientific methodology. In this exhibition, I wanted to point to this commonality with the surface paintings I made on plywood with a high edge thickness, which are between abstract and illusion. Or the relationship between installation and painting in the big room, the viewer's contribution to this exhibition by moving between all these... They are all there because of my focus on these relationships.
I : Yes, but ultimately you’re offering a framework to the audience and saying, “You’re a part of this too.” Yet, it’s still a framework you’ve drawn—a given, something that doesn’t provide an option to choose.
M.D.: You’re right. At this point, it reminds me of a statement in Kadir Kayserilioğlu’s film *The Walls of Paradise*, which was shown at Non.sight, our independent art space at İ.M.Ç. He talks about taking his dog for a walk every morning in a park near his home, which has become a part of his life. But he also mentions that he goes to this park because it’s close to his house, and that its location was determined and arranged by the municipality. As someone who moved into that neighborhood, he became part of this system. Therefore, it’s not that he chose the park—it’s more like the park’s proximity to his house made it a public space already chosen for him. He then adds, “As you can see, I don’t really believe in free will.”
I think this applies to all of our lives. We’re born into a system, and the place we’re born into gives us certain conditions. Most of the time, we don’t even realize that these are predetermined, and we live as though we’re free within the framework. I feel like the same could be said for the universe and the world. In other words, I’m still thinking about the answer to the question you’re asking. Framing encompasses our entire lives, I suppose.
I : Is “Among Ongoing Things” a title that defines being within this framework?
M.D.: That’s the first time someone has thought of that. Thank you for the hint. But as you know, when I was coming up with this title, I was thinking about how, just like thoughts, forms also travel through time and space, how they change slightly through resistance, and yet always carry traces of their original states. In this sense, I know that no form is autonomous or specific.
The work that presents a section from an ancient column using painting and engraving techniques, and the plaster mold in the installation that reveals these ancient forms, are clues about ongoing forms. In ancient times, columns had circular cross-sections. Circles were carved out of squares. In the modern era, columns of similar arrangements have transformed into square forms. Thus, by approaching the art object in its physical aspect and treating found objects like the blue awning or ready-made materials like sponge equally, I wanted to express that all these objects have a significant history in terms of their forms, that these forms persist, and that our bodies and lives pass among them.
Of course, there are also objects in this installation that hold personal significance in my life and that I plan to use in future projects. One of these is a metal wind vane commonly found on ships. This image has a strong place in my memory: it’s from the research ship *ARAR*, which played a role in my grandfather’s migration to Istanbul in the late 1950s. During my childhood, when the ship was in İstinye, I would always pass by and be captivated by how it spun on its own. It felt magical to me. Even now, seeing it standing there in the installation doesn’t feel real—it feels like an image.
I don’t think anyone else would be so enchanted by looking at a weather vane made of raw metal. But when I think about it, crafting three concave forms and welding them to three thin rods around an axis, then attaching them to another vertical rod in a way that allows them to rotate and measure an invisible force—well, that’s already incredibly enchanting. It’s a great example of what designing forms correctly can achieve.
I : Finally, did you feel an inner necessity to create this exhibition? Because I know there are times when you question whether opening an exhibition even has meaning, and that you experience this inner conflict. I seriously suspect that the reason you wanted to do this interview with me is to confess this.
M.D.: Yes, this is a question I’ve been asking myself very often, especially after the pandemic. What I can say is this: an exhibition is an output of an artist’s attempt to make sense of something during a segment of their life journey. In my own experience, I’ve realized that each attempt to make sense brings new questions. This motivates me to seek new questions and answers.
For example, lately, with each new output (or exhibition), I’ve noticed that I’m getting closer to functional objects. This is my attempt to answer certain questions. Perhaps one day, when I look at all these outputs as a whole, I’ll discover something—who knows…