February 23 - August 8, 2021
A Question of Taste was a group exhibition that deals with kitsch, a concept whose meaning has shifted since the 19th century, and the intimate relationship this concept has established with today's visual culture as well as its critical role in shaping taste.
The word kitsch, which has been used to describe cheap and popular paintings or sketches in post-industrial Germany, gradually transformed into a complex concept that found its place in various languages, untranslated. In this era when diversity, ambiguity, and ineffability are sanctified, can kitsch be a tool to carry these values forward? Could thinking about avant-garde and kitsch side-by-side rather than in opposition — by looking closely at contemporary art's relations with the collective aspects of mass culture, rather than considering mass culture as unsubstantial, banal and inferior, and trying to explore the ties between them — agitate the existing structure of class society? Is it possible to define taste as something other than an indicator of class?
Taste may still be an indication of class today, but the structure of the mechanisms that feed and strengthen this signal has now become different. A Question of Taste brought together works of thirteen artists and collectives and focused on the concept of taste as a class indicator; looks at the sense of aesthetics, and its values ascribed to the East and the West. Focusing on the rise of mass culture against high art, it aimed to explore the rich uses of the concept of kitsch in dialogue with the artists, and based on the relationship between art and visual culture that has been shaped in the process of transition from material culture to digital culture. It questions the concept of taste, which reinforces the separation of classes within the societal structure, through both objects, and the visual language that has dominated the Internet since the early 90s.
Curated by Ulya Soley, the exhibition featured the artists Alex Da Corte & Jayson Musson, Bruno Miguel, Cameron Askin, FAILE, Farah Al Qasimi, Gülsün Karamustafa, Hayırlı Evlat, Miao Ying, Nick Cave, Olia Lialina & Mike Tyka, Pierre et Gilles, Slavs and Tatars and Volkan Aslan.
Images
Nick Cave
Drive-by, 2011
Video, 10’05’’
© The artist, Jack Shainman Gallery
Farah Al Qasimi
It’s Not Easy Being Seen 7, 2016
Archival inkjet print, 120 x 96 cm
© The artist, The Third Line
Alex Da Corte
In collaboration with Jayson Musson
Easternsports, 2014
Soundtrack: Devonté Hynes
four-channel video, 146’
Tile, carpet, neon, metal chairs, artificial oranges, diffusers, orange essential oil
© The artist, Sadie Coles and Salon94
Pierre et Gilles
Flowers and Tears (Lolly Wish), 2016
Inkjet photograph printed on canvas and painted, 174 x 126 cm
© The artist, Galerie Templon
Olia Lialina
In collaboration with Mike Tyka
*Treasure Trove*, 2017
HTML, JS, GIFs
© The artist
Gülsün Karamustafa
Watermelon, 1986
Textile, found object, 100 x 143 cm
© The artist, Büro Sarıgedik
Volkan Aslan
Nice to See You, 2021
Installation with porcelain figures produced by the artist, and Suna and İnan Kıraç Foundation Kütahya Tiles and Ceramics Collection
© The artist
Commissioned for the exhibition A Question of Taste.
3D Virtual Tour
Exhibition Catalogue
The catalogue accompanying the exhibition features the curatorial text of Ulya Soley, which focuses on the concept of taste as a class indicator; looks at the sense of aesthetics, and its values ascribed to the East and the West; the rise of mass culture against high art, exploring the rich uses of the concept of kitsch in dialogue with the artists, and based on the relationship between art and visual culture that has been shaped in the process of transition from material culture to digital culture.
A Question of Taste exhibition brings together works of thirteen artists and collectives and deals with the concept of kitsch, and the intimate relationship this concept has established with today's visual culture as well as its critical role in shaping taste.
Pera Museum presents virtual event series “Stage of Plastic Dreams” in collaboration with HYPERCORTEX and with the support of the British Council. Organized in parallel to the A Question of Taste exhibition, the “Stage of Plastic Dreams” event series brings musicians and visual artists together in a virtual event space open to participants.
Pera Learning
Pera Museum Learning Programs organizes Different Tastes for Different Folks in parallel to the exhibition A Question of Taste. The program offers different age groups fun and various discoveries through online workshops and tours.
With inspiration from “A Question of Taste” and “Etel Adnan: Impossible Homecoming” exhibitions, Pera Museum Learning Programs hosts art and science workshops, inquiry-based philosophy workshops, and online exhibition tours with material kits to be posted to the addresses of 7-12 aged participants.
Inspired by its Anatolian Weights and Measures Collection, Pera Museum presents a contemporary video installation titled For All the Time, for All the Sad Stones at the gallery that hosts the Collection. The installation by the artist Nicola Lorini takes its starting point from recent events, in particular the calculation of the hypothetical mass of the Internet and the weight lost by the model of the kilogram and its consequent redefinition, and traces a non-linear voyage through the Collection.
In 1998 Ben Jakober and Yannick Vu collaborated on an obvious remake of Marcel Duchamp’s Roue de Bicyclette, his first “readymade” object. Duchamp combined a bicycle wheel, a fork and a stool to create a machine which served no purpose, subverting accepted norms of art.
A series of small and rather similar nudes Bedri Rahmi Eyüboğlu and Eren Eyüboğlu produced in the early 1930s almost resemble a ‘visual conversation’ that focus on a pictorial search. It is also possible to find the visual reflections of this earlier search in the synthesis Bedri Rahmi Eyüboğlu reached with his stylistic abstractions in the 1950s.
Tuesday - Saturday 10:00 - 19:00
Friday 10:00 - 22:00
Sunday 12:00 - 18:00
The museum is closed on Mondays.
On Wednesdays, the students can
visit the museum free of admission.
Full ticket: 300 TL
Discounted: 150 TL
Groups: 200 TL (minimum 10 people)
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