Links: Dogancay Museum
Burhandogancay.com
Upcoming Events: "Collage – Décollage," Pera Museum. Istanbul, Turkey. May 3-July 20, 2008
Burhan Dogancay is Turkey’s leading contemporary artist and recipient of his country’s highest medal of distinction, The National Medal of the Arts for Lifetime Achievement and Cultural Contribution. Even though he has spent half of his adult life in New York City, Dogancay retains deep and abiding ties to his native Turkey, where he frequently exhibits. He has recently established a monogram museum which contains his own works in many media and those of his distinguished father, Adil Dogancay.
The central focus of Dogancay’s work for the past 40 years has been WALLS OF THE WORLD, a significant document of the world in which we live. Found elements which he gathers on these journeys to far away lands-signs, symbols and mementos of his trips-are collaged and painted on paper and/or canvas-with humor and careful thought. They represent Dogancay’s insight and perception of the social and political landscape. The intelligence with which he approaches his work reveals his advanced education and sophistication as well as his witty commentary about people and their unique national character.
A distinct body of work, little known but of increasing fascination, is his photographs themselves. One particular noteworthy subject focuses Dogancay’s attention on the Brooklyn Bridge. A large archive of black and white photos exists-some of which have never been printed- in which he climbed up with the workers to expose the drama of the Bridge's renovation in l986. Close-ups of the metal structures, the nets set up for the worker’s safety, are photographed in numerous frames in the artist’s attention to detail. Dogancay’s vision of New York’s grandeur focuses the viewer on this bold industrial masterpiece of the mid-l9th century.
