"Once Upon a Time" brings together works created by one of the leading, young contemporary artists, Ramazan Can, in the last five years, at Anna Laudel Contemporary March 1 to April 13.
While drawing attention to problems in our lives caused by modern life, Can offers anecdotes of "primitive" lives in his work. Inspired by Shamanism, rituals, totems and traditions and mythology unique to Anatolia, Can invites viewers into his inner world and childhood memories in the exhibition "Once Upon a Time."
Therapeutic rituals he underwent to cure an illness he suffered in his childhood were the first inspiration for his works, and Can notes that he then researched the rituals and realized that they are based on Shamanism and certain mythological stories. Certain habits that still continue today help the artist handle current issues of modern life from a Shamanist perspective, and while the artist defines his own identity, memory and time, he bases his inspiration on the land where he was born and people that were once nomads, but switched to settled life.
Known for his works on critical theory and cultural memory, Andreas Huyssen's words: "Even though each memory is inevitably connected to a past event or experience, the act of any memory's time status is always now, not the past. It is not the past itself. What creates memory is the slit between the past and now," have inspired Can, and his works helps us to see this slit that keeps memory alive and feeds artistic creativity.
This methodology that he follows when looking for answers to daily questions enables him to make a connection between the past and today and compare the modern with the primitive. He goes a step further and uses primitive methods to find solutions to the modern world. The exhibition "Once Upon a Time" opens March 1, and Can's paintings, installations, sculptures, carpets and weaving, works on life and death, body and soul, rituals and totems and Shamanism, created between 2013 and 2018 will be displayed to experience Can's inner world, his childhood memories and his approach to contemporary issues.
