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"Installation Amerikahaus" Ay¸se Erkmen Ay¸se Erkmen’s space and location-related installations in each case highlight a specific characteristic of the exhibition location. In Cologne, it is the special location of the Kunstverein, bordering directly on the gardens of America House. Until 2001, the Kunstverein was also the head office of the British Council. Both buildings were built in the 1950s as cultural institutes of the former allies. Today, it is only America House that still stands on guarded USAmerican territory. Erkmen refers to this neighboring constellation and its military background. Starting from the Kunstverein, she laid tiles on the American garden; the motives painted on the tiles portray landmines. The abstracted forms can, however, hardly be recognized as mines. For Erkmen follows the principle of camouflage, to which manufacturers of landmines are also committed. With the tiles, the artist transforms an earlier work that she produced for the shop window of the Lafayette department store in Berlin. She presented objects in the shop window, which were also recreations of landmines, as desirable and expensive goods. The forms are based on a catalog published by the Red Cross, to make it easier to identify camouflaged mines in war and crisis areas. While Erkmen, last but not least, comments on the cynicism of (art)consumption in the shop window campaign – people will even buy transformed landmines if they are nicely designed – the Cologne installation goes in the direction of strictly secured territory and borders in the interior of the country. The garden landscape is symbolically sealed with the “Mine” tiles. All over the world, mines are still being laid, among other things to secure borders. Despite numerous protests from human rights organizations, Germany, Italy and the USA are some of the main exporters of landmines. Even this form of neighborliness, at least between Germany and the USA, is highlighted by Erkmen with the tiles between America House and the art association. Artist, born 1949, lives and works in Berlin and Istanbul. |
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