UNINTENDED MONUMENTS
25 November 2022 - 21 January 2023

SANATORIUM presents Erol Eskici’s solo show Unintended Monuments between the dates November 25, 2022 - January 21, 2023. The exhibition brings together Eskici’s works based on “Unintended Monuments”, one of the important points of the conceptual framework that Austrian art historian Aloïs Riegl defined and established in his article titled “The Modern Cult of Monuments: Its Character and Origin” (1903).

Aloïs Riegl's "Unintended Monuments" describes the works that have gained monumental value since they are thought to have traces of time or to point to a moment in history, although they are not consciously designed to remind certain events or people. According to Riegel's concept, such monuments do not have a mnemonic value, however they gain antiquity and historical value over time.

 

Eskici combines the geological concepts and phenomena he focused on in his previous exhibition Stratigrapher (2018) with Riegel's thesis. Nature monument [Naturdenkmal] is a word that comes from the combination of the German words Natur meaning  "nature" and Denkmal meaning "monument". It is a concept that accepts human beings have no contribution to the existence of natural monuments and they’re composed of occuring natural and geological events with all their beauties and strangeness; they are beings or monuments that deserve protection, consisting of all plants, animals and inorganic materials in the environment.

 

The artist places wood, an anisotropic material, at the center of the exhibition in order to be positioned in a parallel space between geological, organic or inorganic nature monuments and  "Unintended Monuments".

 

About the artist:

Erol Eskici’s (1984, Hakkari) practice mainly focuses on painting, drawing and objects. He researches the symbolism, relationships and analogies between, human-made structures, processes, institutions and natural structures. He makes connections between different elements from the disciplines of geology, architecture and natural history and conflicts them. He produces series focusing on certain concepts, techniques or occupations. Eskici lives and works in Cologne.