Risk of Rain

Entitled Risk of Rain, the exhibition explores intertwined materialities of water, desire, heartbreak and material production processes through a series of works-as-bodies, which appear as at once organic and artificial, spanning sculpture, drawing, assemblage, text and sound. A meteorological possibility underlies the exhibition. As desire, heartbreak and trauma manifest themselves through bodily fluids; atmospheric transformations, biological bodies, industrial processes and optical devices become affective subjects on the verge of making it rain. Or, on the verge of creating a momentary focus in our distracted, dopamine-addicted present. Arising from the global urge and desire to find what and who you love under these circumstances, the sculptures in the exhibition each elaborate on a selected moment of focus under conditions of distraction, around the possibility of romantic love, affective states in an everyday family gathering, the softness of a wound or around moments of epiphany in the artistic process. A relatively small and seemingly simple steel sculpture is placed at the center of the exhibition. Its shape is reminiscent of a designer chair but obfuscates any compatibility with the sitting human form. The function is dislocated yet the metaphor is active, as in mounting a horse: it is titled Horses. When seen from the perspective of the small piece of Tyvek paper hanging on it, displaying a hand made copy of the Faber Castell logo, it becomes a frame. Breaking the horse, training living matter, taming your own body: an archeology of making and of industrial production capitalizing on material, emotional, organic and cultural resources across centuries can begin here. Friction and adaptation are central in this and many other works on display: the drawing was made using the transfer technique, applying pressure between two surfaces and pushing a color pencil across the paper. Friction creates the trace, as much as it provokes erasure. Same can be said of Breakfast with Family, one of the larger installation pieces, where erosion becomes central, as a metaphor for memory embodied by the material, in this case, wood: painted, perforated, scraped, carved out, filled up and varnished. Much like the artist’s intentionally amateur sewing and clumsy stitches that cover the surfaces of bags and of the silicone suture kits reaching out from the mechanical body of Open Surgery: An inventory of different shapes of wounds on soft tissue, fillings and stitches over scar tissue. In Cem’s works matter and material processes stand for layers of collective and individual trauma, sediment after sediment. Can love and contingency ever be compatible? He mentions in passing “the truth that when love is conditional, our hearts will be unconditionally broken”. Am I In Love features twin little monsters, fire, danger and deflection as much as it conveys warmth and light, millions of little suns our iphones are. Love remains a question, never becomes a statement. Its simple possibility, as in real life intimacy, is quickly overturned by defensive tactics, scary posturing and irony, all characteristic features of online and parasocial relationships. There are attempts to collect a momentary focus and form, often through the presence of a liquid process. In Breakfast with Family this comes in the form of acrylic water lenses through which a series of five photographic prints come to view. The water lens creates an interplay of scale within the photographic image, reliant on the viewer’s movements and animates the image through this central tension: its focus keeps changing as you shift your position, and so does its relationship to the rest of the exhibition space, momentarily reflecting through the body of water encapsulated within the acrylic porthole. In another instance, Open Surgery is half surrounded by a glass structure carrying its own evaporation metaphor, much like in a condensation cube or a heated aquarium, the glass surface is obscured by an accumulation of matter. While the fluid in Breakfast with Family serves as an optical device, here its shading effect comes as a protective layer in support of the mechanical body it shelters. Occultation might be a necessity when it comes to focus. The barely discernible magnetic drawing in Omnipotent is an underwater self portrait trickstering through the conductivity of water and lightning to describe a moment of artistic epiphany, on the verge of drowning. Press Release by Aslı Seven Passion was eroded because reinforcing emotions to get to its roots has turned “making” into a fair thing. The only notification I get on my phone these days is Apple’s suggestion to turn down the music for my ear health, it bothers me that it understands that my heart is broken. Actually, it’s warning me not to pass my sadness to another organ. Fortunately I’m doing what I love, it’s a rare and lucky situation, so many people talk about this, or there is a global motivation to find what is loved. For a generation so stimulated by emptiness, the prompt to “find it” is not erotic enough. The keys on my keyboard are produced with the method of plastic injection molding and then UV printed. Since I have been typing, erasing and typing again for a while, they are a bit damp and sweaty. The most accessible and cheapest material of industrial production in the world is carved with harmful sun rays and I am sweating on all this. The laborer sweats, the sun is the source of life, plastic is unlimited. The causality of my sweating is not epic, it is not an invention, an idea or a technique. It is just that my lack of attention, derived from the lust of where I touch, wants to collect itself together to create a momentary focus. Its inclusion in my emotions is enough as it is, I have no idea what love is anyway. My distraction is in fact the dispersal of my focus to the environment as a collaborator and partner. This is a contemporary trauma, not being able to gather attention. For some reason, the things right beside us can easily arouse our personal motivation to find something worthy to think about. This makes distracting things highly personal, and resembles the truth that when love is conditional, our hearts will be unconditionally broken." Text in exhibition space by Cem Örgen Pop, single-channel video 3'01'' - Lyrics My heart pumps blood that my veins can’t reach, so I write out of my body and reality to feel a reach. Let me use these walls to heal my speech. When I sweat, this is a new era we bet, these works push my body to sunset, forget. Rushing to the ground to find the truth in debt. No tracks for me, only for you to comfortably penetrate. I’m stepping into my crisis to only renovate, never found my issues in climax to emulate. I don’t regulate, I fluctuate. Cause I’m moodier then your mood boards, erected to the main course, time teaches me to love lost, daily hits me like a racehorse. Just rented the studio to cry in a grace source. I use these tools most lately, heartbroken enough to add more tools maybe. I don’t use, I misuse, abuse then introduce greatly, no time for love mainly, spiraling in my desk unshapely. Thinking about her, and how this affected my work fully, love it. You’re still in the process, lock it. Is this calm and collected? Fuck it. Bolted, jolted, welded, melted, molded, note it. Now I brush my teeth for so-called connections, no tension, just installed corrections. My energy covers all up your mentions. This industry does the beef under the surface through sessions, friends reached me with new lessons. Never learned art from an art scene like a contestant. Born in a white room, serving the white cube full of assessments, my discoveries belong to my disconnect like I need my refreshments. This is for whom mix time investment with gatekeeping. Contemporary creeping to them with truth-seeking. One tiktok gave people more power than their 10 years of critiquing. Now stop acting like a dog, pre-manhood in a fog, lack of emotional clock, only feels like a ted talk. I mostly do red talk, have a lot of bust with fact talk. I don’t find my courage in a ref source. I just wanna grow into a tree, mixed with the blue of the sea. When I expose my roots, I don’t feel free. Let people taste my roots in my fruits like it’s supposed to be. Wanna stretch my branches to loved ones and friends, then we grow to be. Already broke my wisdom tooth in this industry. Doing this full-time cause I rule time when they give me my artist fee.  Work Credits: Pop, 2024. Single-channel music video (3’01’’), laser welded, sandblasted aluminum, mirror, metal plate, pipes and spring, XPE foam (165x90x52 cm) -  Pop Bars, 2024. Permanent marker on pipe laser cut aluminum, lathed industrial polyamide wheel. (21x8x8 cm) Bags, variations (1-3), 2024. Backpack straps, webbings, zippers, buckles stitched on polyethylene foam. Tools, products, mock-ups, test parts, and defective parts used in making the Risk of Rain exhibition. (Variable inside 60x40x20 cm) Horses, 2024. Bent and welded stainless steel pipe, hatched copy of a Faber-Castell logo with colored pencil on Tyvek paper, masking tape. (90x85x65 cm) Am I in Love ?, 2024. Pencil on laminated card postal paper, water jet cut aluminium, clock screws, iPhone. (55x18x8 cm) Breakfast with Family, 2024. CNC cut, power carved, paint-washed, and varnished plywood, epoxy fillings, blow-molded acrylic water lens, silicon sealant, fine art print on aluminum. (220x180x175 cm) Open Surgery, 2024. Stiched suture practice silicon, CNC cut Alucobont, bolts and butterfly screws. (155x75x75 cm) Omnipotent, 2024. Iron dust and magnetic sheet on 160gsm paper, control pen, grounding cable, wall hook, copper nail on salt mixed clay. (150x120 cm) Socials Venue: THE PILL, @thepillofficial, thepill.co Photography: https://www.instagram.com/kaygusuzphotos/?hl=en Author: https://www.instagram.com/asli_seven/ Cem Örgen: cemorgen.com, #cemorgen, #cemörgen