LIVING PICTURE, 1986

LIVING PICTURE, 1986 wood, paint, glass, light, a live pigeon, dimensions variable

I made this work for the show called “An Another Exhibition for the memory of Joseph Beuys” organized by my mentor artist Cengiz Çekil a few month after Joseph Beuy’s death. Çekil was an avid follower of Beuys and felt the urgency to do something to introduce Beuys’ ideas to local arts community. He organized the show with the help of other artists in a short time and with no funding. It was normal unconventional artists to organize their shows without institutional support since the few institutions that there were did not regard it as art or worthy. As my mentor, Çekil was in my studio often and selected this piece for the show.

We installed the show with two dozens of works from artists from Izmir and Istanbul. Show had a good mixture of conventional artists paying homage to Beuys or his ouvre.

I made a large box with convex frame which created enough space behind the frosted glass for a dove to live and installed one of my living doves which I kept in the balcony of my studio. Idea was simply to question what are the boundaries of a picture or painting. After the opening the director of German Cultural Center, whom hosted the show disputed the show on the grounds that my work violated the animal rights in German and show were to be closed if we did not remove the work. We decided to remove the dove and leave the picture installed, un-living. V.A.