Group Exhibition

Murat Germen, Aras Seddigh, Sevim Sancaktar, Mehmet Ali Boran, Fatih Tan and Burcu Yağcıoğlu.

I Can Do This As Well

September 12 - September 30, 2013

Obviously, “I can do this as well” is a cliché that signifies a certain underestimation or disdain. The derogatory attitude of the user of this phrase towards a “thing”, bestows him/her the possibility to employ this linguistic cliché. This “thing” is so far from a quality that requires sentimental finesse, profound knowledge, talent or experience that the individual cannot help but utter this phrase. Meanwhile, the individual also underlines this: This “thing” has confronted the individual (or made to confront him/her) boldly, proclaiming its legitimacy indisputably. The individual’s phrase is a counter-proclamation.

In order to despise or devalue a “thing” and to develop a counter-argument, that “thing” must first adopt a claim of legitimacy. Otherwise, it is meaningless to employ the phrase “I can do this as well” against a “thing” that does not carry such a claim. The most interesting processes of change in arts occurred through moments of action in the wake of the use of this phrase; it is as such in design, architecture, philosophy and even politics. If this process is against legitimacies, outside of space, within the frame of all the shortcomings of the individual, and if it is a vicious assault; then what comes into play is a re-creation that is non-legitimate but concerned fully with that “thing”: A new “thing” that is no longer the same but completely related to it: Art without art, design without design, architecture without architecture, philosophy without philosophy, politics without politics…

Texts explicitly display the paths trodden by many things that were not considered art, design, architecture and philosophy throughout history, trying to shed legitimacies. An example in politics stands before us with utmost clarity: “Politics of an apolitical youth”… Let us have no doubt that all this happened right after the utterance of “I can do this as well” and that it drove the “old” (canons, saints and their petrified legitimacies) into a stalemate; its life will last until somebody else says “I can do this as well”.