Kutlug Ataman in Rome MAXXI
Kutlug Ataman is a Turkish artist and filmmaker whose work brilliantly transcends the boundary between reality and fiction. His videos explore the fragility of personal identity, and the artist is particularly interested in individuals who are outside conventional social categories. What Ataman really finds striking are the outsiders, those who no longer have much to lose, but so much to gain. Thus, his artifice reasserts with absolute certainty the notion that identity is not firmly rooted in the individual, and more like a costume we put on daily.
And this is where the Ataman’s work takes on a fascinating strength and depth. If identity is challenged as the primary basis and foundation of all that is our reality, our life becomes a complexly textured interplay between real memories and imagination, between fact and fantasy. In his work, Ataman displays, consequently, the obvious intersections between these two terms, diluting, finally, the boundary between reality and fiction.
As of September 12 Rome’s MAXXI has been home to one of his most recent and ambitious works, a video installation titled “Mesopotamian Dramaturgies”, in which Ataman once again, takes up the issue of the construction of identity, without losing sight of its social dimension. Ataman returned to Turkey, as an intermediate point between east and west, where this contradiction between two worlds is evident, to examine points of the fragile collective identity that generate shock. Once again the protagonists are marginal figures, who are on the verge of forging cultural and social identities.
Rent apartments in Rome and be sure to catch this fantastic exhibition at the MAXXI.
