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Hayv Kahraman, Draped by Antibody, 2021
Hayv Kahraman, Draped by Antibody, 2021
Hayv Kahraman, Draped by Antibody, 2021
Hayv Kahraman, Draped by Antibody, 2021
Hayv Kahraman, Draped by Antibody, 2021
Hayv Kahraman, Draped by Antibody, 2021

Hayv Kahraman

Draped by Antibody, 2021
Oil and dried pigment on panel
177.8 x 177.8 cm
70 x 70 in
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This recent work continues Kahraman's exploration of the parallels between the politics of the individual and the rhetoric of immunology. Through her recent research on the human immune system, Kahraman...
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This recent work continues Kahraman's exploration of the parallels between the politics of the individual and the rhetoric of immunology. Through her recent research on the human immune system, Kahraman found a less dystopian and more holistic approach to the current global situation. The presence of an antibody indicates the past presence of a disease, yet it is also a symbol of renewal. This juxtaposition suggests that the colonised body, while representing contact with trauma, can also represent a site of convalescence.
In Kahraman’s most recent paintings, antibodies serve as a bridge between the self and the other. Kahraman was inspired by Donna Harraway who said: “Our immune system is everywhere and nowhere”.
Concepts of visibility and invisibility are at the forefront of how Kahraman approaches her work. The artist captures invisibility as a state of dehumanisation, but also as a nearing of an end. The figures dissolve so naturally into the background, it seems as if the process of assimilation has been successful – the erasure of someone’s self. By inventing a new species of women in her paintings, such as in the work Draped by Antibody (2020), Kahraman is creating a collective of superwomen contorting their multiple limbs in abnormal ways. They resemble extraterrestrial beings or organisms that clearly do not belong here and provoke thoughts of fetishisation and eroticisation.
The painting depict figures with confronting gazes and their emphasised corporeality is a declaration of visibility and a refusal to assimilate. By exposing the power structures that render some people invisible, Kahraman’s works present ways of defiance coupled with healing as it paves the way for a re-existence in the world. The artist has said that this new body of works 'comes from a yearning to repair. I started making them after the pandemic hit. I was in a state of despair as the world was collapsing. Antibodies became some sort of silver lining for me. They are these messengers that interact with the foreign and the self and they are essential for the survival of the human species. Antibodies and what they stand for become a vehicle to question and resist various hegemonic power dynamics and most importantly shift the focus towards a radical praxis of care.
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Exhibitions

Die unhintergehbare Verflechtung aller Leben, June 24 – September 17, 2023, Kunsthalle Dusseldorf 
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