CODROIPO, ITALY.- Villa Manin presents EurHope 1153 - Contemporary Art from the Bosphorus, curated by Francesco Bonami and Sarah Cosulich Canarutto on view through February 25, 2007. The artists in the exhibition: Haluk Akakçe, Fikret Atay, Bashir Borlakov, Osman Bozkurt, Banu Cennetoglu, Hussein Chalayan, Cevdet Erek, Esra Ersen, İnci Eviner, Hatice Güleryüz, Gülsün Karamustafa, Ömer Ali Kazma, Sefer Memişoğlu, Ahmet Öğüt and Osman Bingöl, Erkan Özgen, Nasan Tur.

1153 are the sea miles separating the Gulf of Trieste from the Istanbul harbour. A symbolic journey aiming to follow the history, to underline the present but also to inspire future relationships between two countries of a world in constant evolution. Turkey is a nation expressing itself geographically as bridge between Europe and Asia and which, particularly today, can be a crucial meeting place and a fundamental territory of dialogue between East and West. The articulated social and cultural reality of this country is the matrix for a strong identity defined as much by its heterogeneity as by its uniqueness.

The exhibition EurHope1153, organized by the Villa Manin Centre for Contemporary Art, presents a group of young Turkish artists who mainly use video and photography and who, in their work, expose a multifaceted and dynamic world, particularly relevant in relation to the current international artistic developments.

The need to create original narratives reflecting the changes occurred in the recent years in Turkey, the necessity to freely make use of different expressive media and the wish to experiment are some of the aspects which characterise the approaches and languages in the exhibition. The artists express a biting irony that unmasks both national and daily mythologies: from the rielaboration of a both rich and complex past to the urgency of analysing the contradictions of contemporary society, their works offer intense occasions for reflection on the relationships between art, individual and society.

After Instant Europe (2004/2005), a showcase of photography and video from the ten new countries members of the European Community, the Villa Manin Centre for Contemporary Art continues introducing in Italy the visions of artists from Central-Eastern Europe. EurHope1153, in fact, aims to be a tool for exchange and understanding of different realities through contemporary art. The exhibition attempts to investigate unresolved tensions and coexistence between different cultures, favouring the newest voices in the panorama of contemporary Turkish art.

The geographical distance and the Western cultural prejudice towards the “East” are rielaborated through the black and white photographs of Gülsün Karamustafa, who reflects on the stereotyped image of the oriental woman in the European tradition, and through the self-portrait of Nasan Tur who, to obtain a German passport more easily, made his moustaches grow to become the perfect cliché of the “Turkish” emigrant.