Utopia

Illustrating the concept of “Perceived and Reality”

Galata Rum Okulu is going to host Kirkor Sahakoglu’s “UTOPIA” exhibition opening on 26th of May 2017. Sahakoglu has been working on this exhibition for a long time and influenced by Adorno’s quote “It has come to the point that lies sound like truth, and truth like lies.”. The artist explains how our lives drifting away from reality confined us into an illusionary state especially in the last fifty years and indicates even though we wake up from this trance we will never be able to get back to it. He revisits fragments of his personal past when he sets out to find an utopia across the shore while trying to escape from this distopia.
With references to Foucault’s “Heterotopia” which explains multiple times and dimensions coexisting simultaneously in one physical place, his work expands from the streets in İstanbul that gave direction to his life reaching across the shore.
He comes across feeding others, sharing with people, the sea, Zorba, trusting without reason, tolerance without regret, love, Yiannis Ritsos, Azra Erhat, and Heredotus in the utopia he created.

Born in Istanbul, Kirkor Sahakoglu studied at the Getronagan High School, after which he graduated from the School of National Applied Fine Arts Advertising Graphics Department. Later he received his master’s degree at Istituto Europeo Di Design in Milan. He also studied at Domus Academy and participated in workshops.
As of 1985, Sahakoglu worked as art director and creative director in prominent advertising agencies of Turkey, and later founded his own agency. He assisted numerous institutions and products in their branding processes. Recipient of innumerable Crystal Apple awards of the Association of Advertising Agencies, since 2010 Sahakoglu has been working freelance as a consultant for agencies and organizations, as well as teaching undergraduate and graduate students at Marmara University Faculty of Fine Arts. He also organizes seminars and workshops in various universities.
Kirkor Sahakoglu curated “Bearing Witness to the Lost History of an Armenian Family Through the Lens of the Dildilian Brothers (1872-1923)” exhibition at Tütün Deposu in 2014. After collaborating in various exhibitions over the years, he opened his first solo exhibiton “Absent” at Tütün Deposu in 2015.