Age of Gold

Established in 1984 in Ankara, Galeri Nev is getting ready to celebrate its thirty-fifth anniversary. The commemorative exhibition not only invites artists Nev regularly worked since its foundation but also artists whose paths crossed with the gallery at various times, for various reasons. Thereby, Galeri Nev is not only sharing its institutional proposition on the history of networks in art, but also its intimate relations lived in the shadows of the history of art. The name of the exhibition “Age of Gold” highlights the richness of all these ties; with everyone that surrounds the gallery coming together, Nev almost creates a magical moment where everything that is touched turns into gold! As a signifier of magnificence and power, holiness, and purity, gold merges into the artworks for centuries. Every image can distinguish itself as a sacred icon when it is gold that covers the background. Golden leaves make the spectacular frames glitter in grand museums, as well as garments, objects, and especially the crowns of the people living in these frames. Even if gold is argued to be a “color,” the glow of Tutankhamen, Louis the Fourteenth and Gustav Klimt, names that come almost naturally to our minds, approves the fact that it is one of the essential materials building the History of Art. It is known that “tezhip” masters while adorning the pages of the Quran, used to hold their breath and take drops of sweat from their foreheads on to the tip of their brush to separate gold leaves from one another. No wonder why “tezhip” is translated into English as “the art of illumination.” Meanwhile, Yves Klein could easily ask his collector to pay for his invisible artwork with gold and send the gold leaves through the wind into the deep Seine river where it will illuminate nothing but the faith of art history. Among the contemporaries of Yves Klein, gold is essential for Mübin Orhon’s eternal search for light. From the following generation, Erol Akyavaş chooses to grace his famous Miraçname with its drops inspired surely from the tezhip masters. Whereas Mehtap Baydu silences women with golden mounth seals when today, it is rather its‘market value’ that is on the foreground. In other words, like many artists from many different times and geographies, contemporary artists from Turkey have their own ‘golden hours’ as well. Galeri Nev brings together fifty artists including Alev Ebüzziya, Yüksel Arslan, Canan Tolon, Erol Akyavaş, Candeğer Furtun, Nejad Devrim, Seyhun Topuz, Nil Yalter, İnci Eviner, Mehtap Baydu, Necla Rüzgar, Elif Uras, and Nermin Kura at the Age of Gold. Building an intimate cabinet of curiosity, Nev welcomes everyone that needs a refuge away from the darkness into the radiant worlds of artists and the gallery.