A long-awaited exhibition featuring works from sculptor İlhan Koman’s “Infinity-Minus-One” series of the 1970s has opened at Egeran Gallery in Istanbul’s Tophane neighborhood.
Produced in collaboration with the İlhan Koman Foundation, the sculptures represent the first-ever realization of the series according to the artist’s original plans and form an important step in Turkish art history.
Koman, who lived from 1921 to 1986, was a major figure in the history of Turkish modern and contemporary art. His sculptures – both monumental public works and smaller-scale series – explore the possibilities of form and the nature of materials. Driven by scientific ideas and a strong connection to nature, Koman’s abstract sculptural forms are rooted in minimalism and driven by a desire to discover “the unknown within the known.”
In many ways, the “Infinity-Minus-One” series is the perfect expression of Koman’s interests. Inspired by kite tails, the body of work explores the infinite possibilities of a simple structural idea, infinity-minus-one, which is translated into three dimensions, with each work representing a derivative of the concept.
Throughout his work, Koman investigated the nature of his materials, exposing the inner structure of stone, metal, clay and wood. His experimental approach is particularly visible in the “Infinity-Minus-One” series, the formal structure of which challenges the flexibility of the material used.
Koman produced prototypes in aluminum, wood and stainless steel, discovering in the process that the materials did not have the inherent elasticity needed to fully express his ideas. His final determination was to produce the work in titanium which has been anodized blue on one side in order to show the number of turns or waves that form the underlying structure of the work.
(Hürriyet Daily News)
