BEAU IDEAL, 2019

“Beau Ideal” presents a reflection on constructed beauty and a glance at gender politics. Gözde Mimiko Türkkan and Pınar Yoldaş has fresh approaches to the concept of “collective desire”. They delve from variety of angles into labels; skin colors, ethnicities, species, gender norms… Mocking the idea that the colors, forms or behavior of bodies are inherently vested with specific meanings, the exhibition sway in the breeze and they arrive to the station of body politics. Which body is the ideal one, according to who, where and when?

This exhibition features Türkkan’s photo series “Now You See Me” (2015 – ongoing), the re-enactment of amateur looking-porn videos and “cam-girls”. The work expands in the exhibition and artist goes out for a new adventure, a search for the for the biggest right hand of men of African originin Istanbul she can find. In this search, she produces a sculpture that determines the criteria like the glass shoe in the Cinderella story. Artist also documents her search and turns it into a video work. As the mediums diversify Türkkan’s investigation of the beauty myth branches. Looking from this perspective, the hand becomes the symbol of a workforce and its exploitation, in our era it becomes an instrument to measure success and define talent, like in the case of sportspeople. All in all, Türkkan’s works suggests a collective desire to be accepted.