Contemporary Istanbul 2015

Parasite has been chosen to participate in the internationally renowned Contemporary Istanbul. This year marks the fair’s 10th anniversary. In correlation to Parasite’s working model, we will exhibit the works of eight established and emerging Israeli artists from different backgrounds and media: Shai Ignatz, Michal Heiman, Ada Ovadia, Gili Avissar, Doris Arkin, Tal Shochat. Guest Artists: Jossef Krispel and Anisa Ashkar.

12-15 November 2015

Istanbul Congress Center (ICC) & Istanbul Convention and Exhibition Center (ICEC)

Booth B1-311

Shai Ignatz, photographer and video artist engaging mostly with portraits. Ignatz exhibits three framed C-Prints (2015) that challenge principal notions within the photographic medium; relations between still life and motion receive close attention; spatial attributions are constantly undermined, leading to perceptual inversions between the natural and the artificial, real life and representation.

Michal Heiman, artist, curator, theoretician and a member of the Tel Aviv institute for contemporary psychoanalysis. In her video work Daughtertype No. 1: Michal Is Crying (2006-2007) Heiman engages in a solitary act of weeping. The work constitutes as a cinematic event where minimal movement verges on stillness and the private space transgress into an ever observed archive.

Ada Ovadia, painter. Untitled (2015) unfolds Ovadia’s hallucinatory realm and expressive features. The work reveals a marginal eco system where anger, rage, trauma and therapy co-exist. Ovadia’s bare imagery and sloppy brushstroke intensify the drama, while unmasking means of representation.

Gili Avissar, multi-disciplinary artist, exhibits a series of three drawings and a video installation from his latest solo exhibition Leviathan (2015). The show congregates various entities under a large-scaled patchwork tent. In the video Avissar folds himself up into a suitcase, rapidly changing costumes. The suitcase, much like the tent functions as the beast’s intestine or rather as a primeval matrix, a home or a shelter.

Doris Arkin, sculptor. In the fair, Arkin exhibits two of her recent works: Pietá (2015) and Here (2014) made with found construction materials, hardware supplies, and abandoned debris that undergoes a contextual transformation. Both works contain the accumulation of time, as Arkin is invested in toiling processes, embedding notions of slowness, traces of damage and reconstruction.

Tal Shochat, photographer and video artist. In Olive Tree (2013), Shochat portrays a single olive tree, isolated from its 400 years old organic grove. By using studio lighting and a screen on site, Shochat reinforces her ongoing practice, repositioning the natural as a cultivated object.

Jossef Krispel, painter. Istanbul, Krispel’s latest series was created during his stay in the city through the course of summer 2015. In search of more vital modes of painting, the traditional canvas was replaced with Turkish fabrics, commonly used for bathing purposes (Hammam) or everyday apparel.

Anisa Ashkar, multi-disciplinary artist practicing calligraphy, painting, sculptor and performance. In the fair, Ashkar presents three works: Ahlan wa Sahlan (2013), Couple (2012) and Breakfast 2 (2010), all portray several arrangements of coffee cups. The viewers’ gaze, full of anticipation, becomes synonymous with the act of fortune telling, diffusing boundaries between object, subject and media.