Pleats
Hasan Aksaygın (The Veil) and
Virgil b/g Taylor (Heavy Body)
15.09.–21.10.2023
Opening on Thursday, 14.09.2023, 17:00–21:00
and Folds, a series of readings
by Onur Çimen, Rapha Linden, Patty Nash, İz Öztat
and Ashkan Sepahvand
Series 1: 17.9.23, 15:00–16:30
Series 2: 21.10.23, 16:00–17:30
Hasan Aksaygın’s The Veil is a series of paintings speculating on the spiritual history of a piece of fabric. This untold story is hidden between the bulges of the Sudarium, also called the Mandylion, and the folds of the veil of the prophet of Persian miniatures to warn us of a contemporary conflict: the polarized cultural desires for "exposure" - the hyper-normalized post-internet narcissism - and "concealment" - a supposedly anti-colonial scopic regime of conservatism.
Virgil b/g Taylor’s work series Heavy Body discourses with its audience through the chemical element Lead (Pb, Plumbum in Latin). The artist bends, binds, and twists the sculptures to mimic the archaeological finds of magic curse tablets fashioned from the ancient water pipes across the ancient Greek and Roman worlds. However, these works by Taylor are neither curses nor spells, but lessons in variant curvatures of that old metal in the present, instructing us in the aesthetics of vitality and lethargy so that the sacred and profane, toxic and harmless might mingle together.
The reading series Folds will open up with friends of the artists (Onur Çimen, Rapha Linden, Patty Nash, İz Öztat and Ashkan Sepahvand), telling stories around the topics of the exhibition, and touching upon the effects of various Abrahamic traditions on the bodies that materialize in art today. The unveiling of incantations will provide a site for new and old stories to sort themselves out.
Hasan Aksaygın is a painter born 1986 in Nicosia, Cyprus and he lives and works between there and Berlin. His research-based conceptual visual art practice consists of wooden panels, site-specific wall paintings, as well as sculptural objects, and short stories. Aksaygın’s focus of work is founded on the exploration of personal and collective visual and textual subconscious. Specifically, he examines the political disputes in and around Cyprus, the myths around gender(ed), oriental(ized) or occidental(ized) bodies in and out of their contexts, and how they keep perpetuated. Aksaygın is a current BPA// participant.
Virgil b/g Taylor is based in Germany. His work explores histories of care, crisis, exclusion, and toxicity. He makes “fag tips”, an online speculative zine. Taylor is one-half of sssssssssSsss, a study-friendship with Ashkan Sepahvand, a third of Indefinite Leave to Remain with Moad Musbahi and Vishal Kumaraswamy, and a fraction of What Would An HIV Doula Do?, a collective of artists, writers, caretakers, activists and more gathered in response to the ongoing HIV/AIDS pandemic.
BPA// Raum is a platform for artistic exchange. It is operated by BPA// Berlin program for artists and organized by Sophia Yvette Scherer and Anna-Lisa Scherfose.
BPA// Raum
Sophienstraße 21
Sophie-Gips-Höfe
10178 Berlin
Enter through red passageway
BPA// Raum is partner of Berlin Art Week 2023
Opening Times: Friday–Saturday, 15:00–18:00
Berlin Art Week 2023 (15.–17.09.2023): daily from 11:00–18:00
Photos: Eric Bell
