Gülsün Karamustafa
In the Shade

2005

EB66

4-color offset print (hand-applied gold leaf)
100 x 70 cm

Edition of 100, signed and numbered
Edition A: 55 copies (numbered 1/55 - 55/55, all in portfolios)
Edition B: 35 copies (numbered I/XXXV - XXXV/XXXV)
10 Artists Proofs (numbered AP 1/10 - AP 10/10)

600 Euro (Edition B)

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part of portfolio Love It or Leave It more editions by Gülsün Karamustafa
Print by Gülsün Karamustafa. Several layers superimposed. The image of a monument in Ankara, a rectangle with a pink and yellow floral pattern, above a translucent photograph of Karamustafa as a child leaning against a monument. A small square of gold leaf at the bottom.

    In her work, Gülsün Karamustafa often relates her own biography to political events and historical narratives. For her contribution to the graphic portfolio Love It or Leave It (EB66), Karamustafa uses a photograph taken by her father for the offset print In the Shade. The snapshot shows the artist as a young girl in front of the Trust and Security Monument in Ankara, completed in 1935. The front of the monument is adorned with a large inscription quoting Atatürk: “TÜRK ÖĞÜN CALIŞ GÜVEN” (“Turk, be proud, work, trust”).
    The contrast created in the photograph by the juxtaposition of the girl and the colossal figure is continued vertically in the different image planes of In the Shade. The childlike, delicate floral pattern meets the heroic, stylized image of the monument from the propaganda magazine La Turquie kémaliste (published between 1934 and 1937) below it. Like memories that fade and merge with each other over time, the different layers lie on top of each other like set pieces and are held together by a bracket of hand-applied gold leaf. Personal memories combine with elements of collective memory, thus generating one’s own identity in the shadow of consciousness.
    Text: Katrin Seemann