ISTANBUL.- Ergin Çavuşoğlu’s Adaptation – Cinefication is made up of two distinct elements. The exhibition examines the artist’s engagement in the past with painting in its classical and contemporary guises, and juxtaposes them with his better-known film installation works. Çavuşoğlu thus retraces recurring preoccupations in his practice, showing older work in a new context.

The wider concept refers directly to the ‘The Soviet project of “cinefication” that represents the most grandiose scheme of film distribution, exhibition, and reception that the world has known to date.’, as described by Thomas Lahusen. Çavuşoğlu borrows this framework to comment on the current globalised system of ‘cinefication’ of the arts.

Architecturally the gallery is divided in two mirrored spaces on street level. The Adaptation component is presented in one fully front glazed room with a series of paintings from the 1990s, most prominently the Instant (1998) series. In the opposite darkened space Cinefication takes on the form of a film screening. In a theatre-like space, furnished with rows of cinema chairs, Çavuşoğlu shows a number of new pieces such as Résurrection des Mannequins (2014), as well as elements from his recent repertoire of video works, for instance And I Awoke (2012). Alongside the paintings Çavuşoğlu exhibits several small-scale readymade and ‘naturemade’ sculptures. Çavuşoğlu intends his works to be read like chapters in a literary text.

Ergin Çavuşoğlu (born in Bulgaria, 1968) studied at The National School of Fine Arts “Iliya Petrov”, Sofia in the early 1980s. He consequently received a BA in painting from the University of Marmara, İstanbul, MA from Goldsmiths, University of London, and a PhD from University in Portsmouth. He took part in the Turkish Pavilion at the 50th Venice Biennale in 2003. He was shortlisted for the Beck’s Futures Prize in 2004, and most recently in 2010 for Artes Mundi 4 – the UK’s Biggest Contemporary Arts Prize. Recent solo exhibitions include “Ergin Çavuşoğlu – Dust Breeding”, The Pavilion, Downtown Dubai (2011), “Alterity”, Rampa, İstanbul (2011), “Crystal & Flame”, PEER, London (2010), “Ergin Çavuşoğlu”, Ludwig Forum für Internationale Kunst, Aachen (2009-10), Haunch of Venison, London (2004 and 2009), “Place After Place”, Kunstverein Freiburg (2008), “Quintet Without Borders”, ShContemporary, Shanghai (2008), Haunch of Venison, Zurich (2007), “Point of Departure”, John Hansard Gallery, Southampton and NGCA Sunderland (2006), and “Entanglement”, DCA, Dundee (2004). Group exhibitions include “The Best of Times, The Worst of Times; Rebirth and Apocalypse in Contemporary Art”, First International Contemporary Art Biennial, Arsenale, Kiev (2012), “Migrasophia”, Maraya Art Centre, Sharjah (2012), “Zwölf im Zwölften”, TANAS, Berlin (2011), The 4th Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art (2011),“Paradise Lost”, İstanbul Modern, İstanbul (2011), Manifesta 8, Murcia (2010), “fast forward 2 The Power of Motion”, Media Art Sammlung Goetz, ZKM Museum of Contemporary Art, Karlsruhe (2010), “HomeLessHome”, Museum on the Seam, Socio-Political Contemporary Art Museum, Jerusalem (2010), The First Mediterranean Biennial of Contemporary Art, Haifa (2010), “There is no Road”, LABoral Centro de Arte y Creación Industrial, Gijón (2009), “All Inclusive – A Tourist World”, Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt (2008), “Between Borders”, MARCO Vigo (2007), British Art Show 6 (2005), the 3rd Berlin Biennial (2004), the 50th Venice Biennial (2003) and the 8th İstanbul Biennial (2003).

Ergin Çavuşoğlu currently lives and works in London, United Kingdom.