Composed of three large-format photographs and a video, Truth (2011) explores the ambivalence of a society that has lost all its points of reference and is compelled to constantly reinvent itself to the point of touching on the absurd. A hoard of aggressive cameramen, photographers and reporters is in a continuous state of anticipation as they wait for an elusive celebrity, whose identity we do not know; it is like a surreal hunt for the star, which gradually becomes more and more morbid, to the point of compulsion.
Waiting gives way to craving and what at first seemed like a normal media stakeout becomes something obsessive. Yet this obsession never reaches a conclusion as doubt soon arises over whether there ever was any hidden celebrity or if the scene is really all about the absurdity of his or her total absence.
The artist deceives us with the fiction of a precious discovery and then immediately alters its reality, bringing us to the awareness that now, even with the media, the focus is more on the intensity of the scandal than the importance of the event and its newsworthiness. As already suggested in the installation Sometimes, Servet Kocyigit often uses a simple and familiar message, such as the compulsion to check the fridge, to return to themes related to everyday gestures and common habits. In a contemporary world where things seem to have completely lost their meaning, Kocyigit assumes the duty of recalling the simplicity and authenticity of past values, in an almost liturgical way.
FESTIVAL
Paris Photo Los Angeles
May 1st – 3rd, 2015
Officine Dell’Immagine
Paramount Pictures Studios
Los Angeles
780 N. Gower Street
Los Angeles, CA 90038
United States
