Ahmet Öğüt and Cevdet Erek who have been invited to create a new work, under the curatorial collaboration of Çelenk Bafra and Kathrine Bolt Rasmussenhave fused to become one and same person, a character called Ahmet Cevdet Bey. Tunnel of Fear presented by Ahmet Cevdet Bey, is a site specific total installation which includes quaint and kitschy objects collected from the street vendors of Istanbul. The installation invites us to take a journey into a world where our senses and orientation shift into a new experience, where fear, excitement and exhilaration become vague.
Combining Öğüt's critical and subtly humorous studies of everyday social and political relationships with Erek's interest in the viewer's perception and experience of a given space, the project is their first project together. Creating the typical and low budget fear tunnel idea is not only dealing with the minor troubles and speculations of everyday life, but also with issues relating to global economics, multinational corporations and cheap labour.
Ahmet Öğüt, who has represented Turkey in 2009 in Venice Biennial with Banu Cennetoğlu has completed a two-year residency at Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten in Amsterdam. He had solo exhibitions in Sydney Artspace Visual Arts Center, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive BAM/PFA and Kunsthalle Basel. His group exhibitions include Performa 09, The 3rd Biennial of Visual Art Performance, 5th Berlin Biennial, 9th and 12th Istanbul Biennial.
Cevdet Erek, who holds a BA in Architecture from the Mimar Sinan University of Fine Arts and a Masters and a PhD in Sound from the MIAM Centre for Advanced Studies in Music, Istanbul Technical University has completed a two-year residency at Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten. He has held solo exhibitions like Akinci - Amsterdam and 300 m3 - Gotheburg and group exhibitions in 8th and 12th Istanbul Biennial, Tate Modern - London, Artists Space - New York, Extra City - Antwerp and Arter -Istanbul.
Organised in co-operation with Overgaden Institute of Contemporary Art and the Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts, "Ahmet Cevdet Bey presents: Tunnel of Fear" has been realized under the auspices of the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, with the contribution of The Promotion Fund of the Turkish Prime Ministry and the Danish Arts Council. The exhibition can be visited until the 6th November 2011 at Overgaden (Institut for Samtidskunst, Overgaden Neden Vandet 17, DK 1414 Kopenhagen, Denmark).
