Mustafa Hulusi, the British-Cypriot artist and curator, is to become the first Turkish Cypriot to represent Cyprus at the Venice Biennale. "This is the first time a Turkish Cypriot has represented the Republic of Cyprus in Venice or in any major event so in some ways this is a very radical moment," he told me last night.
Mustafa Hulusi, symbolically, will be sharing the representation of Cyprus with a Greek Cypriot artist. Haris Epaminonda left the Royal College in 2003 and makes Stezaker-esque collages from TV excerpts as well as 3-minute video montages. This January she appeared in the show 'I Am Future Melancholic' at Tate Modern, curated by Laure Prouvost and Anne-Sophie Dinant. In Venice, she'll present a series of collages and a video installation based on television broadcast archives in Cyprus and the region. The 27 year old has previously produced videos shot directly from television broadcasts and, like her collages, these too are cut into, introducing scenes from elsewhere. In this instance, however, she isolates and re-inscribes mass media images.
They're both on a recce this week to the Palazzo Malipiero where Cyprus will have a high-ceilinged apartment in which to show Hulusi's and Epaminonda's work. "I'll be hanging about five 10 foot by 7 foot oil paintings once the apartment floor has been redesigned and converted," said Mustafa Hulusi. "I'm making such large paintings to create a total environment, almost mural in size."
The Goldsmith's and Royal College graduate is known for his large-scale, meticulous 'photo-realist' paintings of flora and fruit indigenous to Cyprus, based on photographs taken on his returns to the island. "The images I use are very propagandistic compositions, sometimes captured, sometimes constructed. They sometimes border on the kitsch but always just about hold back, insisting on something more serious in intent. The basis for my works is to somehow talk about an idea of enchantment and estrangement and how these themes can maybe be understood using the idea of visual arrest caught within the glance of the eye."
The Elysian Paintings will be the result of Hulusi's travels around Cyprus in the run up to June. "It will be impossible to consider this exhibition to be 'just painting show' as such, though", he explained, "as the overwhelming size and vivid technique coalesce to make a strong singular installation."
Hulusi first came to public attention by infiltrating his name into the fabric of London by fly-posting it onto huge billboards. That unabashed self-promotion paid off - he managed to entice a lot of people into thinking they knew him even though they didn't. He is also known for curating the now-landmark 'Expander' show at the Royal Academy of Arts in 2004.
The London-based Australian curator Denise Robinson had the idea of bringing both sides of the Cypriot coin together. She reviewed 65 submissions from Cypriot artists both in Cyprus and around the world but in January chose to select Hulusi and Epaminonda.
"Maybe a few years ago this would have been unthinkable", said Hulusi. "However, today this is a sign that all the communities on the island have a shared culture and that co-operation is normal and inevitable. But I am not merely doing this as a political statement; it's about the art. It's mainly about the art - which has always been about the diaspora; the sense of origin. How people feel connected to who they are through the land, the surrounding nature, their neighbours, the trees. Political structures, division of land, ownership of property etc are constructs and will come and go. The culture of people, on the other hand, remains the same."
Mustafa Hulusi and Haris Epaminonda will represent Cyprus at the 52nd International Exhibition of Contemporary Art - the Venice Biennale from 10 June to 21 November 2007.
www.mustafahulusi.com
www.harisepaminonda.com
Laura K Jones
Work by Haris Epominonda:
Work by Mustafa Hulusi:
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