Yeşim Ağaoğlu

Yeşim Ağaoğlu

Yeşim Ağaoğlu's poetry reading on Krytia-2011
Born (1966-01-21) January 21, 1966
Istanbul, Turkey
Known for visual art, poetry
Movement Contemporary art

Yeşim Ağaoğlu (born January 21, 1966 in Istanbul, Turkey) is a multidisciplinary artist and a poet who works with various mediums, especially concentrating on installation, photography and video.[1] Her family comes from the city of Shusha in the Karabagh region of Azerbaijan. The most important thing for her in art is being interactive. She works on poetry (language) and art relationships, gender and feminism issues, architectural elements and political subjects. Since 1995 Agaoglu has produced nine poetry books that have made her famous as a women poet in the literature scene of Turkey.[2]

Life and career

Yeşim Ağaoğlu was born in Istanbul on January 21, 1966. She studied at the University Of Istanbul, Department Of Archaeology and Art History. She has a master of arts degree from the University Of Istanbul, Faculty Of Communications, Department of Radio-TV-Cinema. She attended part-time film lessons using a Super 8 mm film camera at the New York School of Visual Arts; these lessons has resulted in a short film called “Loneliness, Machines And Meditation”.

Her poems have been published in literary journals since the age of 18. She has seven poetry books that have been published in Turkey and two poetry books published in Azerbaijan. Ağaoğlu's poems have been translated into many languages, such as Azeri, Russian, English, Italian, and Spanish. She is a member of the International PEN[3] and also a board member of BESAM (Creators of Scientific and Literary Works Association). Since 2012 she has been an Honored Member of PEN Union of Azerbaijani Writers.

Yeşim Ağaoğlu has been continuing contemporary art activities combining different disciplines since 1996. She has had four solo exhibitions in Azerbaijan, Georgia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Norway.[4] Ağaoğlu has participated in a number of exhibitions in countries like Germany, France, Poland, the Netherlands, Italy, Bulgaria, Uzbekistan, Korea, Brasil, Mongolia, and the USA. Since 2012 she has been an Honored Member of Union of Artists of Azerbaijan.

Artwork

Yeşim Ağaoğlu has concentrated on art making with performance, visual material and objects.[5] At the beginning her poems, written on yellow paper with a conventional typewriter, occupied the center of these works. The yellow pages are a basic material and modest element of communication with the people, but when they are arranged in huge geometrical heaps in the exhibition spaces they also become a Fluxus installation. Her presence in the exhibition space is considered as performance, even if she does not make a performance in the sense that she is directly involved in the process of the artwork, but her continuous blending into the viewers' attendance gives the impression of a performance. Her approach to art-making is minimalist and modest. Avoiding popularity and sophistication she describes her works as "technically simple but conceptually rich."

As a photographer, Ağaoğlu journeys into the city’s simple and elaborate images, focusing on hybrid architecture, human diversity, gender differentiations and well-hidden ideological symbols and manifestations.
Being highly sensitive to the socio-political environment of her region, it is a necessity for her to convey her messages through particular strategies in art making; and, every time she invents new ones. She is decidedly doing well in fulfilling the prerequisites of approaching the distant public of contemporary art.

Selected exhibitions and professional experience

Solo exhibitions

Group exhibitions

Poetry

Since 1995, Yeşim Agaoğlu has produced nine poetry books. The emphasis in her poems is on exploration of the most obscure dreams, desires, and intentions of the soul and the unpredictable relations between individuals; however, in between the layers of poetic descriptions she allows the reader to pass through a socio-political terrain that reflects her critical approach to the order of things. She discloses this complexity in a surrealist mode intertwined with an exhilarating openness of subject and form. Her imaginative qualities also owe much to her education in archeology and cinema.

Poetry books

"yanlışlar şehrinde randevu" ("rendezvous in the mistaken city" (October 1995) Liman publications, İstanbul.

"hırsızlama aşklar, gri yalnızlıklar" ("love stolen, loneliness grey" (November 1996)) Liman publications, İstanbul.

"portakal tek meyve değildir" ("orange is not the only fruit ” (March 1997)) Liman publications, İstanbul.

"başka gezegenin insanları" ("people of another planet" (March 1997)) Liman publications, İstanbul.

"new york blues" ("new york blues" (March 1997))Liman publications, İstanbul.

"özlem şehirleri" ("missing cities" (2006)) Free Writers Society publications, Baku, Azerbaijan.

"eflatun sır" ("purple secret" (March 2007)) Yitik Ülke publications, Istanbul.[11]

"güllerin ağırlığı" ("heaviness of the roses" ( 2007)) By the support of Azerbaijan and Turkish Ministry of Culture, published in Russian and Turkish, Baku, Azerbaijan

"sana şiir yazmasam olur mu" ("you dont mind if i dont write poems to you"(2011) Yitik Ülke publications, Istanbul)[12]

Selected festivals and literature events

Yesim Agaoglu's participation in festival "Poetica1"

References and notes

  1. ↑ Yeşim Ağaoğlu's art blog
  2. ↑ Yeşim Ağaoğlu's poetry blog
  3. ↑ Yeşim Ağaoğlu's profile on PEN International
  4. ↑ Yeşim Ağaoğlu's "i can do it too" solo exhibition catalog in PDF
  5. ↑ I'm Not There: New Art from Asia Gwangju Biennale Foundation, 2010 ISBN 978-89-87719-11-5
  6. ↑ Note about exhibition at Center's of Contemporary Art website
  7. ↑ Note about exhibition at virtualwallworld
  8. ↑ Link on promo video of “OPENLY” exhibition
  9. ↑ Official web page of forum at berlinerpool.de
  10. ↑ Catalog of exhibition "Istanbul Next Wave" ISBN 978-3-86521-978-7
  11. ↑ "eflatun sır" Yitik Ülke publications, Istanbul ISBN 978-9944-493-14-7
  12. ↑ "sana şiir yazmasam olur mu" (2011) Yitik Ülke publications, Istanbul ISBN 978-9944-362-26-9
  13. ↑ Yeşim Ağaoğlu's poetry reading on Krytia-2011 festival
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