Vahap Avşar
Vahap Avşar’s isn’t the classic story of an artist travelling abroad to study or to spend time on a residency program only then deciding to plant roots and stay away. Nor is his relocation simply the result of a foreign love affair; a desperate need to escape and be somewhere else; or a specific desire to experience a major art scene to find that this new context is more supportive for artistic development. Of course, at some point, all these stories played a role in Avşar’s decision to leave Turkey and to move to the U.S. in 1995, where until the last few years he lived continuously except for one single return to Istanbul in 1997 to participate in the 5th International Istanbul Biennial. After this trip the Turkish government suspended Avşar’s passport and added his name to the list of those being chased for avoiding compulsory military service, meaning that it was impossible for him to return again without confronting this legal requirement. Yet, despite even this last very specific constraint on his personal trajectory the more concrete reason for his long years abroad and seeming abandonment of his home country and also of art is that Avşar found another niche for himself: in 1997 along with Lexy Funk (who he later married) he began to design apparel and they together launched the extremely successful American clothing store Brooklyn Industries. This dynamic shift from a burgeoning art career to the creation and ownership of a company that opened stores in the US, Japan, and Europe, is one that makes his recent reborn love-affair and return to Turkey, and to art, all the more prominent and intriguing.