PICTURES

The expression "a picture is worth a thousand words" probably dates back to the publication trade - the printer’s publication of 1911 suggests the worth of a picture assessed at the rate of 1,000 words.  The phrase was used in the form worth a million words by American newspaper editor Arthur Brisbane (1864-1936) in his editorial c. 1916 titled "What is a Good Newspaper" in the New York Evening Journal: "After news and humour come good pictures. In this day of hurry we learn through the eye, and one picture may be worth a million words."

Göktürk’s first solo exhibition Pictures brings together thirteen large scale cinematographic photography curated from a selection spanning across six years of work. Referencing environmental awareness, urbanism, philosophy, cinema, the history of photography and literature, each picture is constructed with pristine attention to detail; as if a painter working on their canvas.  Now, a century later since the expression first came to be, the average person consumes a thousandfold pictures a day, but what’s more concerning is the depth and breadth of such consumption.

Göktürk’s Pictures have emerged in greater Istanbul but their manifold references are more global than ever. Consumption culture reached its ultimate height with the turn of the millenia. The paper cup has become the emblem of a fast life, fibre internet cables are part of the city landscape and at this speed, one picture is worth a million words. In each of his deliberately mise-en-scene compositions, hand placed items cast in light and hidden in shadows give dramatic life to Göktürk’s words, tales of a million words at a time. 

 Mortal shows two native Istanbulite trash cans, but the culture spilling from them may be from any other metropolis. Easy cessation of fresh goods, moments, summer holidays, furniture has become an inseparable part of the urban condition. The balanced composition gives weight to each item, painstakingly placed.

Fingers and Gravity, shot on a Kadıköy street that was closed off, before it was cleaned of everything but the graffiti. Göktürk introduced the seemingly last night's fallen leaves, trash, straws, and the trash can from Mortal to set the scene. The man carrying his iced-latte seems to have given up on it or lost interest, if he ever had any. What we consume increasingly becomes what consumes us, as apparent by the hole of a smartphone screen the man is gravitating down towards. 

Property tells the mind-bending reality of the status-quo related land ownership. The city sprawled uncontrollably to the northern forest with the construction of the third bridge and the new airport. As these projects were announced a decade ago, the area surrounding them saw the emergence of patches of land enclosed with barbed wire. Only due to their relation to the greater, the projected meaning coming from man itself that these patches of land somehow acquired a newfound monetary value. In his signature style, Göktürk creates a web of seeming chaos with a myriad of references. Property, having lost its significance, encloses what once mattered but is no longer remembered, and the value of both the land and what it entails so far removed from sensible reality

Ultimately, the tension Göktürk tries to resolve is the tug of war between chaos and order. Two Monkeys in the Kitchen, aptly named after the imaginary primate agents of chaos running amok in this scene, centres itself around the irreversible destruction of a serene kitchen set. The work does not shy away from the fact that it is a planned scene; the set lights are not hidden but rather emphasised. The lone surviving delicate china on the counter testifies to the presence of the artist; even such destruction and all its elements are the result of a pre-planned, hand placed vision.

In Göktürk’s vast, picturesque world-building, nothing is coincidental. Every shelf, curbside, branch and grassland serves as the backdrop of a not-so-hidden easter egg. The world is changing, fast and often without our meaningful input; Pictures is where Göktürk holds his ground and declares unwavering intentionality. The photographs capture the will, and with it, a million words.