An artist who lives and works in Berlin and Istanbul, Patrizia Bach's first solo exhibition in Istanbul, "Archive Works," will open tomorrow at Depo. The exhibition gives an overview of her works over the last 10 years. The artist, whose main medium is drawing, has been working on archiving, collecting and rearranging. For the past decade, Bach has been focusing on long-term projects that include detailed research processes that result in drawing installations that interact with architecture and expand perception.
Walter Benjamin's thoughts, images and his ways of writing have strongly influenced Bach's work in recent years. Her first encounter with this material was in 2012 in the Walter Benjamin Archive in Berlin. Since then, his pictures and thoughts have been accompanying her production. They led her to Paris where Benjamin, in his period, tried to rewrite the history of 19th century France. After, she followed him to Moscow and traced his steps in "Moscow Diary." Finally, Bach traveled to Istanbul with Benjamin's notes in "On the Concept of History."
Walter Benjamin's belief that history is innate in things and images and always needs to be read in the context of the fight for oppressed past not only changed the artist's personal relation with history, but also influenced and changed her work. This approach retrospectively transformed her photos and "TOMIKO Archive," her long-term work with amateur photographs, as well. In this sense, it can be said that there is a complete circle from the archive to Benjamin and from Benjamin back to the archive.
"Archive Works" brings together her three projects: "Arcades-Work," "TOMIKO Archive" and "Past, in Each of its Moments, Be Citable." Materials, photos, sketch books, maps and artist books from the search period of the project accompany the installation comprising of more than 400 patterns and presents a perspective about the journey and processes of the artist.
Supported by the Goethe Institute Istanbul and Walter Benjamin Archive in Berlin, the exhibit can be visited until July 1.
About Patrizia Bach
Patrizia Bach is an artist who lives and works in Berlin and Istanbul. She has received several grants and scholarships, including the German Academic Exchange Service's (DAAD) scholarship, the research-scholarship of the Berliner Senate for the project, "Past, in Each of its Moments be Citable - an Exhibition Project on Walter Benjamin's Concept of History in the City of Istanbul," the state of Berlin's Elsa-Neumann-Scholarship (Nafög) and the grant of Stiftung Kunstfond for her work on Walter Benjamin's "Arcades-Project." Her monograph "Arcades-Work, Drawings on Walter Benjamin" was published in 2017 in German and English by Revolver-Publishing with texts by Kathrin Busch and Knut Ebeling.