ArtLab: Elif Erkan

TR

Dates: 04 May - 04 June 2014

Mixer ArtLab is a project that was initiated with the mission of strengthening relations between international and local artists. By taking an aspect of an artist’s production period, not typically shared with the audience, and by presenting this to an audience, ArtLab is able to offer both the artist, and the viewer alike the opportunity of exploring a renewed take on the artist/viewer relationship. As artists are already accustomed at exhibiting work; ArtLab aims to focus on the production period, by making visible the work carried out in the artist’s studio viewable to an external audience.

 Elif Erkan is the seventh artist invited to Mixer ArtLab to share her production period between May 4 and June 4, 2014. Elif Erkan has been working on a number of sculptures which focuse on contemporary displays of psychological depression and crisis. During Mixer ArtLab, artist will examine “German Engineering” in terms of professionalization for trust through quality and discipline. “German Engineering” for ArtLab will be literally a lab and an office at the same time.

Invested in exploring the social meaning and content of construction materials and its relationship to the personal and private, the works are highly invested in testing their limits with new innovative technology. The project will take part in various layers, such that visitors will have the chance to examine the research material of “German Engineering” and also be able to engage in its development. There will be a webpage showing the tests and results of the project. At the end of the residency, the objects, investigations and tests will be on display.

About the artist:

Elif Erkan (1985, Ankara/Turkey) Elif Erkan holds an MFA from Otis College or Art and Design, Los Angeles, USA (2016) and HfBK Städelschule Frankfurt am Main, Germany, Meisterschülerin Willem de Rooij (2013). Some of her latest solo exhibitions are ‘Where you they form’ The Pill (Istanbul, 2020), ‘What is that possesses me’, Weiss Berlin (Berlin, 2018), Lotus Eaters, Park View, Los Angeles – (Villa Aurora, USA, 2016), ‘Standards for Living’, Maison des Arts, (Brussels, 2015), Konzentration der Kräfte, Portikus, (Frankfurt, 2015), Elif Erkan took part in several group shows worldwide including a duo show with Megan Marrin at WIELS (2014, BE), What Remains Is What The Poets Found, PS120, Berlin
Work Loves Me, Lanserhaus, Appiano sulla strada della vino (Italy 2018), Home, Night Club ,  Chicago (2016, USA),  The Social Register, Park View, Los Angeles, (2015,USA)  A Possible Collection, Honolulu Zurich, (2015, CH),  Career Woman, Holz Kohle Koks, Berlin, (2015, GE), Villa Aurora Revisited, organized by Park View, Balice Hertling, New York, (2015,USA),  Pereusel, NoMad Project Display Kunstverein Frankfurt am Main (2015, GE).
Elif Erkan was also part of the Europalia research and exchange program initiated by the EU in 2015. 

Erkan is the recipient of a grant from Hessiche Kulturstiftung (2020), Paris Studio Residency (2016) Villa Aurora Berlin Fellow (2015)  and  she was a resident at WIELS, Brussels (2014, BE).  Her work is included in several collections worldwide and has been reviewed in prestigious publications such as ArtForum, Mousse, Contemporary Art Daily. She currently lives and works in Frankfurt and Brussels.