Ayhan was born in 1968 in Çan, Çanakkale. Lives and works in Çan.
Modernism seems to have brought individualism forward, but now
we realize that the ones who could enjoy individualism are only the
bourgeoisie. Caught in the tumult within the chaotic environment
caused by Modern times, the individual created various defence
mechanisms. Evidently, these mechanisms are not “dandyism”
demonstrated by the silly bourgeois who behaves as if he/she is
a bohemian; because even “going mad” is considered as an act of
the rich. Remembering Marx’s teachings, we can acknowledge the
estrangement of the individual to nature and the alienation caused
by the capitalist markets and its social system. It is even alienation to
itself, to its labour, to its communications, to the world and to the life.
Humankind is even alienated to the system itself, to its nature and
became a tool of capitalism.
The work of Ayhan Taşkıran, entitled “Untitled” is produced with
crocheting, designated as one of the traditional arts and crafts
model in Modernism. By utilizing a traditional arts and crafts
which is categorically excluded from the Modernist artmaking that
only favours and accepts painting and sculpture, he displays an
implemented dissention. On the other hand by employing a crochet
which is designated as a female production, Taşkıran challenges his
role as a male artist. The expectation of traditional motives on a
crochet has been cut up by the figure on a treadmill. Hence, the artist
questions the dilemma of “innovation/retrospection” that crystalizes
on the crossing of Modernism/Postmodernism.
Ayhan Taşkıran, an artist and academician, living in Çanakkale,
joins into the debate of the biennale “fictions and dissentions” with
a critical approach to the topic of Modernism/Postmodernism. He
is juxtaposing Postmodern concepts such as “peripheral, antithesis,
texture/intertexture, rhetoric” against the fundamental principles of
Modernism, such as “centre, synthesis, gender, semantic”.
