NEVIN ALADAG

Nevin Aladag (born 1972 in Van, Turkey) works in sculpture, performance and film. Her practice addresses questions of borderlines and frontiers, often in connection with the constructions of identity. Aladag explores culture, transformation, and belonging by uniting distinct elements with disparate heritages into single works. She lives and works in Berlin, Germany.

Until August 23rd Nevin Aladag is exhibiting in her first major solo museum exhibition in the U.S. at SFMOMA, San Francisco. Other notable upcoming institutional shows in 2020 include the Lehmbruck Museum, Duisburg, Germany; Hayward Gallery, London, U.K. and a three person show at Kunsthalle Mannheim, Mannheim, Germany (2020).

In Nevin Aladag´s Social Fabric works the artist constructs’ colourful composite landscapes from carpets of various formats and origins from the Maghreb, Iraq, or China to carpets from Europe and the USA. Subject of borders and transgressing borders is here not just addressed in terms of content, but also formally.

Aladag here runs through the various connotations of ‘social fabric’: social spaces are constituted by social fabrics, i.e. the demographic, historical, and cultural segments that constitute the structure of a society. This form of social fabric manifests itself simultaneously in Aladag’s objects in the very concrete fabric, the individual fibres from which the narratives are spun in every single carpet. All segments of Aladag’s object have a contemporary origin, even though formal references suggest various temporalities; questions about the concrete conditions of production, globalised trade, and post-colonial perspectives are thus introduced into the work as well. In her presentation, Aladag yields to a democratic impulse – provenance and quality are subjected to the purely formal and aesthetic construction.

Nevin Aladag's most recent series of sculptures, entitled Resonator, are polyphonic objects constructed of different string, wind and percussion instruments – ranging from harp, mandolin and chimes, to acoustic and bass guitar, drums and didgeridoos. Even though culturally and geographically of different origin, they all unite in one form that allows their sounds to resonate in the same body. The sculptures, just like an orchestra, merge to a unit of instruments, which can be played by different musicians at the same time while each tone is always in relation to the other. By creating a texture of different acoustical elements, Aladag also references her Social Fabric series, where the various textiles become an utopian carpet beyond place, style and era.

In 2017, Nevin Aladag was included in documenta 14 in Kassel, Germany and Athens, Greece and the Biennale Viva Arte Viva in Venice, Italy. In her Venice performance work, “Raise the Roof”, women dancers wear headphones and dance on a metal platform. Each wears high-heeled shoes and a T-shirt announcing the title and duration of the song that privately accompanies her. The sound of the dancers’ steps is amplified through microphones installed underneath the platforms, which creates an improvised rhythmical composition. In a thin sheet of copper, we see marks left by stiletto heels during the dance performance. The heels have pressed themselves into the material as the trace of a moment.

Aladag’s works have been shown internationally in various solo and group exhibitions at institutions including Bundeskunsthalle, Bonn; Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt; Kestnergesellschaft, Hanover; Kunsthalle Nürnberg, Nuremberg; Kunsthalle Hamburg, Hamburg; Staatliche Kunsthalle Baden-Baden, Baden-Baden; Kunstmuseum Stuttgart, Stuttgart; Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, Wolfsburg; Marta Herford, Herford; Haus der Kunst, Munich; Kunsthalle Fridericianum, Kassel; Mathildenhöhe, Darmstadt (all Germany); Kemper Museum of Art, Kansas-City, MO; The American Jazz Museum, Kansas-City, MO (both USA); TBA 21 Thyssen Bornemisza Contemporary, Vienna; Lentos Kunstmuseum Linz (all Austria); Museum Tinguely, Basel; Kunsthalle Basel; Basel; Kunsthaus Zürich, Zurich (all Switzerland); Pythagorion Art Space Schwarz Foundation, Samos, Greece; ARTER Vehbi Koc Foundation, Istanbul, Turkey; MOT - Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan; Hayward Gallery, London, U.K.; Museo Tamayo in Mexico City, Mexico and many others.

Nevin Aladag participated in the 2013 Sharjah Biennial (UAE), in the 11th Istanbul Biennial in 2009 (Turkey), The 8th Taipei Biennial in 2008 (PR China) and the XIV Biennale Internazionale di Scultura, Carrara, in 2010 (Italy).

Works of Nevin Aladag are in the collection of the European Central Bank Art Project, Frankfurt; Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich; Schwarz Foundation, Munich; Kunstmuseum Stuttgart, Stuttgart; Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin; Museum K20/K21 Düsseldorf, Germany; DEKA Bank, Frankfurt; Sammlung Philara, Düsseldorf; Sammlung für zeitgenössische Kunst der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, Bonn; E.ON Collection, Essen (all Germany); Museum Tinguely, Basel, Switzerland; Centre Pompidou, Paris, France; Vehbi Koc Collection, Istanbul, Turkey; Collection of Sheikha Hoor al-Qasimi, Sharjah, UAE; TBA 21, Vienna; LENTOS Linz Kunstmuseum, Linz (both Austria), K11 Art Foundation Shanghai and Hong Kong.