Sarkis
Nach Anton

In 2011, Sarkis showed parallel projections of nine video works in his solo exhibition The Speed of Colors at TANAS – Project Space for Contemporary Turkish Art in Berlin. In the video works from 1996 to 2010, Sarkis paints on water. He touches the surface of a bowl filled with water with a brush dipped in watercolor paint and draws a fleeting motif on it. Watercoloring, painting with water, thus became painting on water in front of the film camera. A motif from one of these videos inspired the then five-year-old Anton Block to create a felt-tip drawing, which, when photographed and given to the artist, inspired him to create a “classic” watercolor on paper. A total of 24 slightly varying watercolors were created, next to which Sarkis positioned 24 photographic prints of Anton’s drawing. The edition Nach Anton is a montage of watercolor and photography. This very personal work, a “collaboration” between a Turkish artist “of the first hour” and the publisher’s grandson, clearly shows the close and personal relationship between René Block and the artists with whom he has often worked for decades.
Text: Eva Scharrer