“The Soul of Things” Tizgöl identifies his works as “Soul of the Things…” Getting a chance to observe an artist’s character, life style, view of life up close makes it possible to judge his or her art. In other words it enables to interpret the artist’s filtered and purified works. In his book “Art and Revolution”, Berger (1969 : vii) emphasizes that being able to criticize an artist’s work depends more on the power of effectiveness the work has, rather than the critic’s ability to perceive the work of art itself. At this point, the plain but not crude, affectionate and deep style of Kemal Tizgöl’s ceramic works stands out.
It can be seen that Tizgöl is an artist who can touch objects’ souls as if they have a meaning concealed behind the object and its objectivity; an artist who chooses challenges and shows such great effort. It re- fers to the emphasis and questioning of objects being man-made but industrially being untouched in the process, their place in our lives and their projection. His attributions to meanings and the associations they create, helping us enter his world. His main objective, of course, is not the quest for absolute meaning behind objects. Tizgöl briefly states his aim as “Pulling objects out of the context they are in, providing a new proposition and whilst doing so, using my own plastic statement and developing it.” When saying this; the desire to question what is, to rep- roduce-multiply, but while doing so providing an exciting artistic pro- posal, thus contributing to mankind’s constant effort to re-establish himself, can be seen. He does not repeat himself when using multip- lication as an artistic term; when using geometric shapes in a plain form, his intuitive behaviour, along with a perfectionist approach can be sensed.
Even though it seems that the artist who can touch “the soul of things” may be choosing the more difficult option, when his works are obser- ved up close it can be perceived that he has no other alternative. In the forms structured with sensitivity and accuracy, the choices of colours obey simplicity and purity. It can be seen that his works are handled in a manner which is free of conflict and which integrates. The forms he chooses and develops, the way he plays with these forms, the way he composes and reshapes them and presents them in a serene way with multiplication, confirms the previous statement.
In the artist’s plastic statement, two dominant factors can be seen. While the first corresponds to editing (the meaning which implies the corrections done on a text before printing), the other is reproduction, which means multiplication and regeneration. Editing becomes evi- dent as an artistic approach because it can be sensed that the artist’s previous works, the language of the forms and he himself have entered a confrontation, a fresh overview. With the reproduction approach we observe in the works; (the contrasting ideas of industrial production- artistic production, raise the now cliché question which dates back to Marcel Duchamp’s use of ready-made objects, whether the uniqueness of the art object can be a work of art when opposed to serial produc- tion) including the change in the system, we come across the regene- ration and reshaping of what is, in Tizgöl’s applications as a reflection to the works. In this exhibition, it can be seen that the artist focuses on different variations of forms he has been using for a long time. Addi- tionally, plumbing materials such as plastic flush pipes, elbow pipes, blind caps; objects found in dumpsters which have industrial shapes; systematic and textured wrapping papers are all cast and “remade” with ceramic materials. The artist has sometimes used these forms individually or has integrated them with their components. In his works where he uses the original and the copy together, the artist interprets the formalist approach in our present day where the real and the virtu- al world have intertwined, thus presenting it to our realization.
Seeing Tizgöl’s ceramic applications carry traces of the minimalist approach, which dates back to the 1960’s, may confuse the audience today. It may lead us to think whether there is an attitude against being affected by the days we live in the fast and intense flow of the cities and towns. In contemporary ceramic art it is possible to see artists which have chosen to express themselves with a minimal and plain technique. However, it is challenging to express so much with so little with a material like ceramic which has passed on thousands of years of history. Tizgöl’s works make us think that he has described himself in the best way possible using such a plastic language.
Burcu Öztürk Karabey
