Ebru Özseçen
Jawbreaker

2009

EB75

Plastic video object (height: 4 cm, diameter: 17,5 cm), printed cardboard with instructions (19,5 x 18 x 4,5 cm)
DVD (74 min)

Edition of 8 + 2 AP, signed and numbered

4.800 Euro

Request
Edition by the artist Ebru Özsecen. A screen hangs on the wall, showing a close-up of a woman sucking on a ball of sugar. In front of it on a table is the packaging for the DVD in the form of a round kitchen scale. The lid and the corresponding box are next to it
Video edition by the artist Ebru Özsecen. One still from the video shows a close-up of a woman sucking on a ball of sugar.
Video object by the artist Ebru Özsecen. A white round kitchen scale that serves as packaging for the DVD. The scale is marked 0/158 g.
Video object by the artist Ebru Özsecen. The cardboard box of a round kitchen scale, which serves as packaging for the DVD. The box is designed like a standard commercial product packaging with printed illustrations and texts in several languages

    Desire and pleasure – from an explicitly female perspective – are central themes in Ebru Özseçen’s artistic work, which is both sensual and conceptual and encompasses a variety of media. Her preferred materials are sugar, licorice, and chocolate, from which she forms sculptural objects of ephemeral quality. Or, as in the single-channel video projection Jawbreaker (2008), she uses them as readymade objects. The video shows a woman licking a sugar ball with almost salacious relish, the slurping and smacking sounds clearly audible and forming a kind of soundtrack. The video object of the same name, released a year later, illustrates how Edition Block’s now iconic editions have inspired a younger generation of artists. In order to turn the 74-minute single-channel video into an appealing edition, suitable packaging had to be found.
    Richard Hamilton’s appropriation of industrial design in his multiple The Critic laughs (EB30) inspired Özseçen to create a sculptural object in the form of a kitchen scale, made of white hard plastic, with a circular scale from 0 to 158 grams, in whose “plate” the DVD is presented. The round plate disc can be turned to open (bayonet lock) and stops or opens at the 106-gram mark – the difference in weight of sugar that could be licked off in 74 minutes (52 grams). The sugar ball, in turn, creates another connection to Hamilton’s object – after all, Hamilton’s idea of mounting an oversized set of teeth on the handle of an electric toothbrush was inspired by a joke article set of teeth made of sugar. And, as with Hamilton, the packaging, which resembles that of a commercial household item, includes a booklet with instructions for use. The sides of the packaging feature brief information about the product in six languages (TR / GB / DE / F / I / NL) – such as “52 g of pleasure in 74 minutes.” The embossing on the underside of the object reads: JAWBREAKER 2008 – © BY EBRU ÖZSECEN & EDITION BLOCK, BERLIN – EDITION x/8
    Text: Eva Scharrer