YOU CANNOT AFFORD THIS! at Contemporary Istanbul

YOU CANNOT AFFORD THIS!, a collaboration between Kasa Gallery and the Museum of Contemporary Cuts at CI – Contemporary Istanbul, is an art event that questions current art market practices and the disruptive nature of contemporary digital media. This continues an international theme that Kasa Gallery has addressed during the past year with a series of exhibitions that reflect upon the nature of contemporary art, politics, neo-capitalism and plutocratic practices.

Are the arts inexorably linked to the market? What is the role, if any, for politicized art media practices that bring new critical perspectives and alternative forms of engagement to the corporate art world? Is once again, as in the early avant-garde, the aesthetic choice trapped between total acceptance and total rejection, since the ‘third way’ appears to have failed in the past 20 years? In a climate of profound social and economic cuts, where the lack of social cohesion is bringing forward struggles and tensions, who are the ‘marketable artists’ talking to? Is a commercialized and purely self reflective aesthetic art practice the only option that can be set as a ‘successful’ example of aesthetic contemporary engagement?

Kasa Gallery and the Museum of Contemporary Cuts, invited by Ceren Arkman (Director) and Irmak Arkman (Art Director) of Plugin at CI – Contemporary Istanbul, present artworks by John Craig Freeman, Will Pappenheimer, Mark Skwarek and Tamiko Thiel.

YOU CANNOT AFFORD THIS! is a collaboration between MoCC, Kasa Gallery, OCR, Goldsmiths, NYU Steinhardt and the Royal College of Art.

Lead Curator: Lanfranco Aceti.
Senior Curators: Pat Badani, Nicholas Mirzoeff and Marquard Smith.
Event Manager: Çağlar Çetin.

CI – Contemporary Istanbul: November 7 to 10, 2013.

Please bring smart phones and iPads to view the installations.