Non-existent Art Encyclopedia Volume 2
2025
Artist Book and set of collages
In 1996, at the age of 15, art books were hard to find in my hometown. To fill the void, I created my own art encyclopedia by cutting out images and art-related pages—taken from Meydan Larousse and Gelişim Hachette Alphabetical General Culture Encyclopedias. I consider this as the Non-Existent Art Encyclopedia: Volume 1. At the time, I was unaware of the famous 1954 photograph of French publisher André Malraux examining the layout of the second book in his trilogy, Le Musée imaginaire de la sculpture mondiale (The Imaginary Museum of World Sculpture). In 2019, Goshka Macuga created a feminist version of that photograph (Exhibition M) at MOMA, which includes her intervention in my Angela Davis poster hanging on the wall. I was also unaware of Aby Warburg’s Bilderatlas, a series of 63 panels with black-felt backgrounds featuring 971 images, including photographic reproductions of artworks from Antiquity to the Renaissance, mixed with newspaper cuttings, advertisements, stamps, images of coins, and astrological charts. My self-made art encyclopedia intuitively was connected to these references which I discovered much later.
2025
Artist Book and set of collages
In 1996, at the age of 15, art books were hard to find in my hometown. To fill the void, I created my own art encyclopedia by cutting out images and art-related pages—taken from Meydan Larousse and Gelişim Hachette Alphabetical General Culture Encyclopedias. I consider this as the Non-Existent Art Encyclopedia: Volume 1. At the time, I was unaware of the famous 1954 photograph of French publisher André Malraux examining the layout of the second book in his trilogy, Le Musée imaginaire de la sculpture mondiale (The Imaginary Museum of World Sculpture). In 2019, Goshka Macuga created a feminist version of that photograph (Exhibition M) at MOMA, which includes her intervention in my Angela Davis poster hanging on the wall. I was also unaware of Aby Warburg’s Bilderatlas, a series of 63 panels with black-felt backgrounds featuring 971 images, including photographic reproductions of artworks from Antiquity to the Renaissance, mixed with newspaper cuttings, advertisements, stamps, images of coins, and astrological charts. My self-made art encyclopedia intuitively was connected to these references which I discovered much later.
Non-Existent Art Encyclopedia: Volume 2 is a contemporary version of that project—a collection of collages crafted from fragments of artworks and images of artists found in discarded magazines.
including;
Takashi Homma, Isaac Julien, J.D. Okhai Ojeikere, Helen Levitt, Othman Moussa, Zanele Muholi, Abderrahim Sissako, Juliana Huxtable, Nikolas Hlobo, Takehisa Kosugi, Khaled Hourani, Cosima von Bonin, Daniel Garcia Andujar, Maha Maamoun, Manuel Felguerez, Haus-Rucker-Co, Ayse Erkmen, Jill Magid, Gigi Spelsberg, Divine, Ana Mendieta, Francis Alÿs, Abraham Onoriode Oghobase, Otobong Nkanga, Banu Cennetoglu, Dominique Gonzales-Foerster, Alfredo Jaar, Kudzanai Chiurai, Samuel Fosso, Cem A, Jill Magid, Mohamed Bourouissa, Sarkis, Stan Douglas, Simone Forti, Naeem Mohaiemen, Mary Sibande, Pope L, Aydan Murtezaoglu, André-Malraux, Oliver Ressler, Baudouin Mouanda, Harun Farocki, On Kawara, Araya Rasdjarmrearnsook, Guy Bourdin, Furkan Temir, Agnieszka Polska, Sinéad O'Connor, Trevor Paglen, Tehching Hsieh, Joseph Kadow, Rebecca Horn, Emeka Ogboh, Kiri Dalena, Shirana Shahbazi, Carrie Mae Weems and many more.
including;
Takashi Homma, Isaac Julien, J.D. Okhai Ojeikere, Helen Levitt, Othman Moussa, Zanele Muholi, Abderrahim Sissako, Juliana Huxtable, Nikolas Hlobo, Takehisa Kosugi, Khaled Hourani, Cosima von Bonin, Daniel Garcia Andujar, Maha Maamoun, Manuel Felguerez, Haus-Rucker-Co, Ayse Erkmen, Jill Magid, Gigi Spelsberg, Divine, Ana Mendieta, Francis Alÿs, Abraham Onoriode Oghobase, Otobong Nkanga, Banu Cennetoglu, Dominique Gonzales-Foerster, Alfredo Jaar, Kudzanai Chiurai, Samuel Fosso, Cem A, Jill Magid, Mohamed Bourouissa, Sarkis, Stan Douglas, Simone Forti, Naeem Mohaiemen, Mary Sibande, Pope L, Aydan Murtezaoglu, André-Malraux, Oliver Ressler, Baudouin Mouanda, Harun Farocki, On Kawara, Araya Rasdjarmrearnsook, Guy Bourdin, Furkan Temir, Agnieszka Polska, Sinéad O'Connor, Trevor Paglen, Tehching Hsieh, Joseph Kadow, Rebecca Horn, Emeka Ogboh, Kiri Dalena, Shirana Shahbazi, Carrie Mae Weems and many more.
The photo of the cover of Non-existent Art Encyclopedia Volume 1, 1996 (at the age of 15)
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