Hale Tenger is one of the most important artists of her generation. A sensitive observer of the power relations that shape and change our realities, Tenger has spent over three decades exploring how to navigate the search for freedom, and how we act in the world when faced with its absence, through the poetics of image, sound and language.
As a young person, Tenger faced the spiraling violence between left and right-wing political groups in 1970s Turkey. These conditions, coupled with an economic collapse, were used to justify the 12th September 1980 coup d’état which overthrew the government. Witnessing the breakdown of civil order and the creeping normalisation of authoritarianism in Turkey instilled in Tenger an urgent need to respond, ‘For me, making art was the only way I could manage to become, to exist.’
HALE TENGER / BORDERS / BORDERS is the first museum survey of the artist’s work. Spanning the 1990s to the present, it features key multimedia installations alongside significant video, sculptural and sound works that encapsulate Tenger’s enduring preoccupations: hegemony, human oppression, the subjugation of more-than-human life forms, and the tension between violence and gentleness; as they relate to the cyclical recurrence of war and peace.
The exhibition demonstrates Tenger’s unique construction of affective atmospheres through the intricate layering of sound, image and language. Her installations unfold slowly, revealing a subtle interplay of presence and absence, truth and fiction, past and future. These are works that resist resolution in favour of cultivating reflection on how history is constructed, how narratives are weaponised, and how we might find new ways of being within, and beyond, borders. As Tenger herself states, ‘At its core my work is about standing against patriarchal hierarchical power games.’
In this spirit, HALE TENGER / BORDERS / BORDERS is an invitation to attune to the psychic, physical and political borders that define and transform the world. Though covering more than thirty years, the works in this survey speak directly to now as authoritarianism rises, the public realm disintegrates, borders tighten, dissent is criminalised, and the media increasingly fragments reality into competing fictions. As she says in relation to the turbulence of recent global events that have horrifically undermined international law and humanitarian agreements, ‘I would now argue that it is not only Istanbul but life itself, and the world as we’ve made it, that subjects us to a full range of paradoxes.’ Her work cannot lead us out of this confusion but it can open a space to feel the contradictions more fully, as we both believe and do not believe that things will get better.
The exhibition is curated by Rachel Ciesla, Lead Creative, Simon Lee Foundation Institute of Contemporary Asian Art, The Art Gallery of Western Australia.
Image credits – Hale Tenger Borders / Borders 1999. Two-channel video (colour and sound, 4’45”, loop). Courtesy of Hale Tenger and Galeri Nev Istanbul. Hale Tenger Beirut 2005-2007. Single channel video (colour, sound, 3’47”, loop). The State Art Collection, The Art Gallery of Western Australia. Purchased through The Art Gallery of Western Australia Foundation: TomorrowFund, 2013. © Hale Tenger. Hale Tenger Balloons on the Sea 2011. Seven-channel video installation with sound. Installation view ‘Viva Arte Viva’, 57th International Art Exhibition La Biennale di Venezia, Arsenale, 2017. Courtesy of Hale Tenger and Galeri Nev Istanbul. Photo: Ali Erdemci. Hale Tenger
Where The Winds Rest 2007. Single-channel video installation (black and white, 30”, loop), 16 floor fans, black cables, rotating video projector device. Each fan ø: 51 cm, h: 58 cm. Installation dimensions: 600×800 cm. Arter Collection, Istanbul. Photo: Laleper Aytek.
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