Kaplankadilak Kipat

Kipat is a rearrangement of the letters of the Turkish word kitap, which means book. It doesn’t have a meaning of its own. This artist book was published within the context of the exhibition titled Topsy-Turvy! Selpakla Gorili Bitirdim! by Gu¨çlu¨ Öztekin that took place on December 18, 2017– January 21, 2018 at Dirimart Dolapdere. Nearly all works that came out of Öztekin’s studio during the eight-years period from 2009 are meeting in Kipat. He is an artist working without pause, conceives and prepares his exhibitions together with the site, avoids interventions such as explanations to make his works “understood.” With a similar approach, this book, like his exhibitions, and his notebooks –that indispensable part of him– doesn’t let any word come between the reader/viewer and his work. When you quickly leaf through the pages of the book, you may have a feeling that you are seeing characters, scenes from cartoons or fantastic movies. Daily objects, for instance a roll of toilet paper, a face, a momentary light, an ordinary moment in the course of life, a feeling may be subject of his work. Basing on the notion of simplicity as frequently emphasized by Öztekin, all works taken to the book are laid out without any hierarchy, even any sequence. Kipat, true to its name, is a suggestion of order or confusion in which all his works can be seen upside down, but also as they are. Every single copy of the book is sequenced differently, and numbered by the artist. This book takes the reader/viewer to a simultaneous journey into the fantastic world of kaplankadilak, the alter-ego of Öztekin and to the daily life of Gu¨çlu¨ Öztekin as an artist. A conversation on painting, working, and their relations with ordinary things accompanies this journey, during which they sometimes agree, sometimes argue.