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"Fragile" Bülent Şangar In “Fragile”, Bülent ¸Sangar, stages in front of the camera, futile attempts to escape from the parental living room and thus from the bonds. “Fragile” is one of his performances, which he captures in photographs or produces to be filmed. The various sequences show him following offers that seem to promise a way out. But in the first instance, the double projection repeats the cramped conditions: only a tiny aperture allows a view into a small room, where the parents are at first sitting motionless in the background. Contrastingly, the son performs all kinds of actions: a gun moving through the door and push-ups evoke military associations; his bodybuilding an ideal of male beauty. While the video remains relatively “real” on the left side, it is becoming more and more absurd on the right side, and the attempt to flee from the narrowness turns into a farce. At some stage, the father throws a toilet roll across the room, a maximum and emotional reaction to his son’s ambitions, and a sign of his own immobility. The private scene is disrupted by a sequence of advertisements, which promise a wealthy and glamorous life. The world of consumption engenders a number of desires, which have a mobilizing effect. In this context, the parents stand for family bonds as well as for the situation of a new generation, torn between traditional, parental ideas and a consumption-oriented Turkey; and captivated in this ambivalence. Although subjects such as “excessive consumption” or “excessive westernisation” have been frequently discussed with respect to questions of morality in Turkey, these themes have gained a new topicality since the early 90’s, since a flood of products and images supply the patterns for a revision of traditional ideas. Artist, born 1965, lives and works in Istanbul. |
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