About
Ergin Çavuşoğlu (Bulgaria) studied at the National School of Fine Arts, Sofia, Marmara University (BA) Istanbul, Goldsmiths College (MA) London, and the University of Portsmouth (Ph.D). Çavuşoğlu co-represented Turkey at the 50th Venice Biennale in 2003. He was shortlisted for the Beck’s Futures Prize in 2004 and for Artes Mundi 4 in 2010.
Central to Çavuşoğlu’s artworks are concepts that explore ideas of place, space, liminality, mobility and the conditions of cultural production, which he has been examining in classical, modern and contemporary guises through video and sound installations, anamorphic drawings and sculptures. The contextual framework of his practice in its broader capacity examines socio-cultural terrains and human geographies. Çavuşoğlu’s video installation works engage thematically with the in-between spaces of urban environments: airports, waterways, marketplaces, historical sites and national borders. These are also mobile spaces, where ships, currencies, people, and time pass in disengagement with their geographical coordinates. The concepts of time and liminality are central to his practice on a multitude of levels. Çavuşoğlu alludes to these themes in a reflective way positioning them within geo-political, philosophical, historical and literary contexts. The spatiality and the immersive qualities of his installations further contribute to the manifestation of these concepts in the ways the viewer experiences them.
Furthermore, the pattern of literary references in his narrative film and video works unfold a series of moral parables that have a notional relevance to contemporary art and the production of culture. Çavuşoğlu frequently works with fiction and non-fiction texts in the development of my projects in various forms and contexts. Sometimes he produces cinematographic and theatrical adaptations from these writings, and often texts institute concepts and act as forms of conceptual clarifications. Moreover, the acknowledgement of art in his broader practice as a scholarly activity often presents a multi-layered experience of its systems today and their appreciation, or indeed critique.
Solo exhibitions include: Ergin Çavuşoğlu, Desire Lines /Tarot & Chess/, “Artists’ Film International” on Language, Whitechapel Gallery, London, Istanbul Modern Museum and Fundación Proa, Buenos Aires (2020); Which Sun Gazed Down on Your Last Dream?, Rampa, Istanbul (2016); Cinefication (Tarot and Chess), in The Image Generator II, Extra City Kunsthal, Antwerp (2016); Liquid Breeding, YARAT Contemporary Art Space, Baku (2015); Dust Breeding, The Pavilion, Dubai (2011); Alterity, Rampa, Istanbul (2011); Ergin Cavusoglu, Zilkha Auditorium, Whitechapel Gallery, London (2011); Crystal & Flame, PEER, London (2010); Ergin Çavuşoğlu, Ludwig Forum für Internationale Kunst, Aachen (2009); Place after Place, Kunstverein Freiburg (2008), Point of Departure, John Hansard Gallery, Southampton (2006), and Entanglement, Dundee Contemporary Arts (DCA), Dundee, 2004. Group exhibitions include: Love Songs I Photography and Intimacy, ICP, New York (2023), The Sun Rises in the West and Sets in the East, Tufts University Art Galleries (TUAG), Medford (2022), The Futureless Memory, Kunsthaus Hamburg (2020), But a Storm Is Blowing from Paradise: Contemporary Art of the Middle East and North Africa, Galleria d’Arte Moderna Milano (GAM) (2018); On Anam? Where are we going?, Es Baluard Museu d’Art Modern i Contemporani de Palma, Palma, Majorca (2018); Your Story! Geschichten von Flucht und Migration, Kunsthalle Emden (2017); But a Storm Is Blowing from Paradise: Contemporary Art of the Middle East and North Africa, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York (2016); Artists in Their Time, Istanbul Modern (2015); 4th International Canakkale Biennial (2014); First Kyiv International Biennale of Contemporary Art (2012); Seven New Works, Borusan Contemporary Museum, Istanbul (2011); Paradise Lost, Istanbul Modern Art Museum (2011); Manifesta 8, Murcia (2010); fast forward 2 The Power of Motion, Media Art Sammlung Goetz, ZKM Museum of Contemporary Art, Karlsruhe (2010); All Inclusive – A Tourist World, Schirn Kunsthalle (2008), Frankfurt; the British Art Show 6 (2005); the 8th Istanbul Biennial (2003) and the 3rd Berlin Biennial (2003).
Çavuşoğlu lives and works in London, where he is a Professor of Contemporary Art at Middlesex University.
