Borga Kanturk uses painting and drawing as his artistic medium yet it is often difficult to call the result of his production processes ‘paintings’. He makes hand made copies of official documents, which dictate a public identity on to the individual, like diplomas, student identity cards, honours certificates, examination passes, and identity cards. These experiments with ‘artificiality’ and ‘constructedness’ become an act of protest through recreating the original images while distorting and reframing them. These remade objects, which were brought together in an installation titled “Borga Kanturk/Retrospective” shown in the exhibition ‘I am Too Sad to Kill You!’ at Proje4L in 2003 served as a starting point for other works. Borga Kanturk’s oeuvre is contended multi-layered selection. There are works which designate an intimate space, introverted and secluded: play-dough sculptures, found toys, “slightly melancholic mortal objects, tiny fragile statuettes that risk being disfigured with a touch” and everyday objects like a pack of cream cheese, a playing piece from a game, a leaf from a memo pad and a pencil. Little scenes made out of play-dough bring together elements borrowed from TV and computer games, such as a scene depicting a 10cm soccer player figure watching a big text which is a slogan from Anfield Road. In Kanturk’s words: “a pocket size version of the dream of large scale production.” Next to them is the series of paintings bearing the title “ALLA TURCA” NEO-ROMANTIC emulating the renowned landscape works of romantic painters like Caspar David Frederich and William Turner on a small-scale. The attempt to discover landscapes provoking adventure on an artificial monitor; Lara Croft looking for the remains of a sunken ship underwater, a submarine in the midst of the blue, a car attacked by a UFO in an uncanny land, a passageway to a mysterious world. Little paradises that allow us to take a break from the everyday and daydream, habitats for protected adventures… “Creating a beautiful space that pleases you, withdrawing there and building your resistance there.
Newest works of Borga Kanturk are usually focused on the stories / narratives of the not so wel-known soccer histories. These works are intended some nostaljic images which are re-production by artists as a poster, booklet and hand made broshure. These images are made in a documentaristic sense as a nostalgic efemeras, collectors items, stickers etc.
Kanturk creates mise-en-scene’s which focuses on the forgotten history of football. Revenge of Zidane, forinstance, reminds primarily of famous Zinedine Zidane and his case of receiving the red-card. However, Kanturk, subtly tricks the audience with the name, only to talk about the story of other Zidane, Djemal Zidane of Algeria(who we may have never heard of). Another work combines two stories from history: Dinamo Kiev, the famous Soviet football team of the 2nd World War and a low-budget, amateur Turkish team from the 80’s which bears a similar name ‘Dinamo Mesken’. The story of the abolishment of the amateur team due to political reasons and the two distinct stories of the cities Bursa and Kiev provides a strange yet interesting remark.
In addition artist reconstructs his small gestural performances, as flip-books and grafitties. These works carries the purpose of recording some occasional encounters and daily, off-the-record absurdities. Artist, involving himself in the process of events, fabricates the narration with a traditional method, drawing, in a documentary vocabulary.
