“These staged images have theatrical atmospheres, complex arrangements, and various art-historical references; human suffering has always been a prominent subject in art. The heroes in these pictures are girls who often adopt traditional male roles such as Jesus or Abraham, symbolizing the empowerment of females, that represent the underprivileged and exploited classes. Gradually, the young, hopeful, confident schoolgirls in my earlier images have become disillusioned, struggling women. In a way, this transformation presages Hunger Games and Tahrir Square and reaches its apex in pictures such as Hunger, Guerilla Girls, and The Triptych; the latter of which represents the struggle of non-conformist rebels against obedient collaborators. As in the words of Yeats, “the innocent and the beautiful have no enemy but time,” but here time seems to have conquered youthful optimism in an apocalyptic dystopian universe, somewhat akin to what happens in Gilliam’s movie Brazil.”
Nazif Topçuoğlu
Born in 1953, Nazif Topçuoğlu graduated with a Masters degree from the Institute of Design in Chicago in 1981. Since then he has exhibited worldwide and has held several solo shows both in Istanbul and abroad, as well as publishing 3 books on the history and criticism of photography. Topçuoğlu’s work was included in the Turkish pavillion during the 50th Venice biennale in 2003 , he has participated in various prestigious group shows including “A Subjective Panorama of Contemporary Turkish Photography” as part of the Turkish Cultural Season in Paris at the Maison des Metallos in November 2009. His work is included in several significant publications on contemporary art. These include: “Vitamin Ph: New Perspectives in Photography”, published by Phaidon in 2006, “User’s Manual: Contemporary Art in Turkey 1986-2006”, published by art-ist in 2007 and “Unleashed: Contemporary Art from Turkey” which was published by Transglobe in the spring of 2010.
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