Hakan Topal

Hakan Topal
Born 1972
Çorum Province, Turkey
Nationality Turkish, American
Known for Conceptual art, New media
Movement Conceptual

Hakan Topal is an artist living and working in Brooklyn, New York. He is currently Assistant Professor of New Media and Art+Design[1] at Purchase College, SUNY and a graduate faculty member in the School of Visual Arts’s MFA Program. He was the co-founder with Guven Incirlioglu of xurban collective (2000–12), and is known for his research-based[2] conceptual art practice.

Education

Hakan Topal attended Middle East Technical University (METU) in Ankara, where he also grew up. Trained as a civil engineer, during his studies Topal became an active member of the university's photography community, where he organized events, workshops and exhibitions. During these years, influenced by 1970s performance artists such as Chris Burden, Marina Abramovic, and Rebecca Horn, he realized his first art projects and performances. He then decided to concentrate on artistic research from within the Gender and Women’s Studies graduate program at METU where he received an M.S. Concurrently, he worked at METU's Audio Visual Research and Production Center where together with his autonomist colleagues, including Ulus Baker, Aras Ozgun, Ali Demirel, Ozgur Gokmen and Ersan Ocak, they transformed it into one of the first collective new media centers in Turkey.

In 2000 he moved to New York City and soon after began working at the New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York as New Media Projects Manager until 2008. He was responsible for the museum’s Media Lounge, the only dedicated museum space exhibiting new media art projects at the time. He worked on a wide range of technical, conceptual and design projects, produced art works and developed websites.[3]

He continued studies in sociology, receiving an M.A. and Ph.D. from the New School for Social Research with a concentration in urban sociology and sociology of art. His dissertation was titled Negotiating Urban Space: Contemporary Art Biennials, The Case of New Orleans.[4]

Exhibitions

Topal exhibited his collective and individual art works and research projects in institutions such as the 8th and 9th Istanbul Biennials; apexart, New York; Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary (TBA21), Vienna; Kunst-Werke, Berlin; ZKM Center for Art and Media; MoMA PS1; Kunstwerke, Berlin;[5] Platform, Istanbul and Roundtable: The 9th Gwangju Biennale.

Topal represented Turkey at the 49th Venice Biennale. His texts and projects have been featured in many international journals, books and catalogs. He is co-editor of the book, The Sea-Image: Visual Manifestations of Port Cities and Global Waters[6] which is the outcome of visual research and an international symposium for the Istanbul European Capital of Culture 2010.

References

  1. ↑ http://www.purchase.edu/departments/AcademicPrograms/faculty/NewMedia.aspx. Missing or empty |title= (help)
  2. ↑ Whose Terms? A Glossary for Social Practice: RESEARCH
  3. ↑ The New Museum archive website
  4. ↑ Negotiating Urban Space Contemporary Art Biennials and The Case of New Orleans by Topal, Hakan, Ph.D., New School University
  5. ↑ Gritz, Anna. “Political/Minimal”, Frieze Magazine (January 2009)
  6. ↑ Topal, Hakan and Incirlioglu, Guven. "The-Sea-Image: Visual Manifestations of Port Cities and Global Waters". New York: Newgray, 2011

External links

Bibliography

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