The columns held us up
Exhibition by Artists Space
In collaboration with Platform Garanti Contemporary
Art Center, Istanbul
Co-sponsored by the Moon and Stars Project

Opening Reception: Tuesday, July 7, 2009, 7-9 pm
(Performance by Jeremiah Day at 7:30pm)

July 8 - August 1, 2009
Tuesdays thru Saturdays 12 pm – 6 pm

Artists Space
38 Greene Street, 3rd Floor
New York NY 10013

Hüseyin Alptekin, Can Altay, Burt Barr, Daniel Bozhkov, Celine Condorelli, Jeremiah Day, Cevdet Erek, Corey McCorkle, Christodoulos Panayiotou, Wael Shawky and the invited (cordially uninvited) curated by Krist Gruijthuijsen with Ben Kinmont, Lisa Oppenheim, Adam Pendleton, Julika Rudelius, Alexandre Singh and Jordan Wolfson

For program information, please contact Artists Space at
(212) 226-3970 or info@artistsspace.org.

For press inquiries, please contact Elizabeth Hirsch at
(212) 226-3970 x 303 or press@artistsspace.org

Moon and Stars Project is pleased to sponsor in part The columns held us up by Artists Space, a collaboration with Platform Garanti Contemporary Art Center, Istanbul, comprised of an informal exhibition and series of events curated by Vasıf Kortun and November Paynter.

The columns held us up is a confluence of intertwining relationships and shared interests, based on the strength of thoughts and ideas to uphold or pillar a situation in the absence of structural parameters. Here, Platform takes into consideration those artists who have supported it during its eight years of development. A number of the selected works in the exhibition stem from intensive research of layered, everyday systems that accumulate to propose intricate narratives. For example, a collaborative multimedia installation by Can Altay and Jeremiah Day investigates Istanbul via the chain of production of stuffed mussels, the city’s well-known street delicacy, while an itinerant work by Daniel Bozhkov hosts a site for storytellers that traces the journey of a family jewel, engraved with an Ottoman Persian poem, and the reflections on and translations of its meaning formed along the way.

Other works have been chosen because they are, in themselves, systems or products of support, such as Celine Condorelli’s structural intervention based on the study portrayed in the 1475 painting St. Jerome in his Study by Italian Renaissance master Antonello da Messina. Further works in the exhibition that embrace these ideas include the videos Telematch Suburb by Wael Shawky and Self Portrait by Burt Barr; a series of photographs titled Hayvanat Bahçesi (The Zoo) by Corey McCorkle; the slide installation Wonderland by Christodoulos Panayiotou, and the installation Kara-kum by the late Hüseyin Alptekin.

Additional activities build on past interests and concerns: Celine Condorelli’s functioning intervention will host a book collection point, where institutions and artists can donate books that will travel to Platform’s library in Istanbul at the close of the exhibition (a project first presented as Collection Point at the Frieze Art Fair in 2006); a period of on-site work and research by artist Cevdet Erek; and the invited (cordially uninvited), a series of collaborative events and performances organized by past Platform resident Krist Gruijthuijsen that will take place in Soho July 14-18.

In collaboration with Platform Garanti, this exhibition has been organized by Meredith Johnson and Amy Owen.

The columns held us up is generously supported, in part,
by The Dedalus Foundation and the Mondriaan Foundation, Amsterdam.