“Once Upon a Time Inconceivable”: A Review and a Conversation

Insun Woo: Could you tell us more about the exhibition title, Once Upon a Time Inconceivable, and how the topics for the exhibition came about?

Mari Spirito: The exhibition embodies the passing of time, how we understand it, what conditions lead to realizations, and then what happens from all that. It was organized for our tenth anniversary, yet it's really about misunderstanding time, which is why many of the works here are changing and moving. That’s why we refer to it as a milestone: something that we’re passing by.

While we were working on the exhibition, we all learned how people’s perception of time had changed quite a bit because of the pandemic. We felt time passing differently because we weren’t able to physically move around. Along with that, having all that time to think leads to realizations for many. Lots of people were making big life changes, about work, where they live, how they live, and so forth. So all these things were put together into this soup that is the exhibition.

I.W.: It’s clear that the perception of temporality is central to the exhibition. Could you tell us more about the decision to bring Ceal Floyer’s works Viewer (2011-21) and Overgrowth (2004), which deal more with spatiality, into the exhibition?

M.S.: I try to put artworks together that address the core issues on a spectrum. The artworks are each about the topics from varied directions.

I’ve always been affected by the fact that when you physically change places, you get a different emotional perspective on things. Living in Istanbul has allowed me to gain a different perspective on things that are going on in New York, and this is fascinating and insightful. I felt that this is reflected in Ceal’s Overgrowth; the distance between the projector and the wall changes our relationship with the projected image. Similarly, Viewer offers a mediated view of a space, changing our understanding of it, yet at the same time an absurd move to put a peep-hole in a window.

Also, I wanted to include works by artists who I’ve worked with in different ways. Ceal is an artist I’ve had the longest relationship with—we’ve worked together for twenty years, since my time as a gallery director in New York, part of my past. On the other side of it is Gülşah Mursaloğlu, who I know the least and first showed her work in  2017.

I.W.: How was Beykoz Kundura selected as the site of the exhibition?

M.S.: I met Buse Yıldırım, who is the Artistic Director of Beykoz Kundura, a few years ago. In 2019, Protocinema premiered our screening tour at their cinema. We had a lovely working experience and kept talking over the years. While I was in the process of looking for a space for this show, Buse invited us to do the exhibition there. I am constantly keeping my eyes and ears open for spaces and always thinking about how to put artworks and spaces together. It’s regular practice for an itinerant art organization like us.

Alper Turan: Besides the good relationship we had with Beykoz Kundura, we also liked how it’s used as a film set, which fits with Protocinema’s interest in moving images. Also, the space is huge, and there aren’t that many large spaces available for an art exhibition, so we saw it as an opportunity.

I.W.: Yes, I loved it! It went really well with the exhibition topic as well. I could see and feel the history of the space--how it was used as a warehouse for a factory. I’d love to hear more about the exhibition design. Could you tell me more about some of the choices you made?

M.S.: We chose to use the space as we found it, as we wanted to show the aging of the space. The dust on the floor was left as it is, and spider webs near the window were left uncleaned. We also placed the works in a way that rewards close-looking visitors. Viewer is installed right at the entrance, many people initially run right past it, when they first walk in. You might get it only on your way out. Also, two of Mario Garcia Torres’ silkscreens are hanging in dimly lit parts of the show. Which is interesting because Mario’s works are precisely about how knowing or not knowing changes how we experience and understand our world. There are some extra treats in this show, “easter eggs’ as the film industry likes to call them, for those who look closely.

I.W.: That’s what I wondered. I also noticed how parts of the windows were colored, and the colors were similar to those used in Mario Garcia Torres’s silkscreen. Did you do that for the exhibition?

M.S.: That coloring of the windows are plastic films that Kundura Beykoz put on there to make it look like stained glass. It’s a visual trope used a lot around Istanbul referencing pre-Ottoman era glass history. Mario’s palette came from photos we sent him of the front of the cinemas where the posters of his “Spoilers” would go. The posters were sent to independent cinemas in Kars, Izmir, Ankara, and here in Beyoğlu, Istanbul.

A.T.: Also, if you look at Gülşah’s work, some of the bioplastic sheets are tinted with colors. She was literally inspired by the coloring of the windows in the exhibition space.

IW: I’m also curious about the placement of the works in the show—Cennetoğlu’s work, IKNOWVERYWELLBUTNEVERTHELESS, for example. I had read the ProtoZine before visiting the exhibition and tried envisioning what the exhibition might look like, and I expected Cennetoğlu’s work to be hung either near the exit, or at the end of the exhibition space, since it asks the question of what comes after realization. I was surprised to find it somewhat near the middle of the exhibition space.

M.S.: Naturally, in group shows works are installed to create conversations between each other. Paul’s video is on the floor facing our entrance to put forth a grounded feeling. Yet his story is a very long one—in real time, it lasts longer than the run of this show and keeps going in other parts of the city until sometime in November. Both Gülşah Mursaloğlu’s and Hera Büyüktaşçıyan’s works are also on the floor with reaching elements, so that viewers look both down and then up. This leads you to Banu’s sculpture which is installed up near the ceiling. Banu’s work speaks of the psychological and pathological crime of inaction, where Gülşah’s work crumbles in its own action and Hera’s work reveals over 1,500 years of layers upon layers of power struggles. Alternatively, Abbas Akvahan’s sculpture, spring, is about a pause, a frozen or suspended feeling, that is revealed in a moody part of the warehouse with only a sliver of natural light and only a little connection to the outside. I wanted it in its own winter oasis, yet in the vicinity of Ceal’s tree (of life). Zeyno’s work deals not only with A.I. yet also how much things are both very different and the same through history. Her and Fitisound’s audio lure you into a cyclical time warp and it is installed where the viewer will pass it multiple times. There’s a lot of visual activity happening up on the ceiling, damaged wood for example, nets hanging to catch falling debris, so we wanted Banu’s work to be in conversation with that mess, as well. It's part of the show. Mario placed his paintings himself, to be discovered along the way and function as “ah ha moments” and punctuation marks. I also wanted the natural light from the outside to fall on each of these works in different ways. So, there are lots of variables.

I.W.: How interesting! It worked really well. That clearing between Mursaloğlu’s and Büyüktaşçıyan’s works, especially. Could you also share more about Amie Siegel’s Quarry (2015)? How does it relate to other works in the show?

M.S.: The relationship between Siegel’s and Büyüktaşçıyan’s works is direct, especially considering what happened to the architecture of Ayasofya (Hagia Sophia) here in Istanbul. [editor’s note: In July 2020, the Hagia Sophia was stripped of its museum status and converted into a mosque. Turquoise carpet was laid across the marble floor]. 

On its own, Quarry is an articulate representation of extraction. During the pandemic, when talking about reducing consumption to reduce extraction, I surprisingly got a lot of people asking, What do you mean? Instead of being aggravated that I have to explain that to people, I thought that it’d be nice to show it. There’s a lot of seduction about these beautiful high-rise apartments. The work walks a line between being critical yet potentially from the inside, being seduced by power and money. I think that’s something that is important to keep in mind because we all say that we want to stop consuming and be more sustainable, but we’re participating in it. So that brought about the cardboard box walls and recyclable seating. We really worked on where we could to make the exhibition not be wasteful. We didn’t fly artists in, we didn’t ship any artworks. We are participating in what is possible to do.

IW: Do you know how Pfeiffer’s and Garcia Torres’ works installed in other locations in Istanbul and other cities in Turkey were received?

M.S.: We did get some feedback from cafes when we first installed Pfeiffer’s work. People were waiting for the eggs to hatch and they wanted them to hatch faster! We will go back now that the eggs are hatching and ask people what they think.

IW: Yes, that’d be so interesting! Last but not least… What is your vision for Protocinema in the coming years?

M.S.: We’re envisioning some more writing projects. How would you articulate that, Alper?

A.T.: That, and we’re also trying to work more on the grassroots level with other initiatives and artists around the world—in addition to Istanbul and New York.

M.S.: We will be doing things differently, yet we don’t know how yet. That’s the inconceivable part. We have the flexibility as a small organization. We can experiment and try different things. When we first started Protocinema without a permanent physical space and working in different cities, it was hard for people to grasp. Now, there are so many organizations working like this. So, we want to make another new way to work that responds to this moment in time, to the new needs that have come up, in ways that we do not even know about yet.