HALIL ALTINDERE AT MOMA PS1

74
HALIL ALTINDERE AT MOMA PS1
Damla Koksalan
Anger can be heard before entering the room.
A gallery on the second floor of MoMA PS1 is
exhibiting a one-screen video that illuminates
the entire room. I sit down on the cold
floor across the shifting images, keeping my
distance from the screen—timid to get any
closer to the angry faces I see in the video.
Three young men run through a pedestrian
bridge made of bricks; a romantically historic
view contrasted by their harsh words.
A Turkish rap song with a catchy melody
reveals the young performers’ frustration with
the government-inflicted gentrification of
their neighborhood, Sulukule. The area is part
of a historic district of Istanbul, and is mostly
occupied by Romani communities. The harsh
lyrics are piercing, the cinematography jumps
between close-ups and panoramic shots. I
realize I have been unconsciously keeping
with the rhythm. Simultaneous to my foot
tapping, a police officer onscreen explodes
into flames. The fire surrounding his body is
shown in slow motion while he runs for his
life. He collapses soon after.
I walked into the gallery in the middle of
the video, but it captured me from the first
moment. The work successfully transmits the
ideology behind it—that of impotent rage in
the face of cultural erasure—regardless of the
point at which you enter its world. “We pissed
on the foundation of the newly built blocks,”
reads the subtitles as a young man raps with
two of his comrades at his side. They are
leaning towards the camera, closing in on us,
as I, an outsider to their problems, direct my
sympathy toward them. Their heads turn to
the ground with sadness as they continue to
rap, “Sulukule now belongs to bourgeoisie.”
The artist, Halil Altindere, documents and
gives the locals of the Romani community
a voice through his dark work, Wonderland
(2013), a music video for a rap song by the
hip-hop group Tahribad-i Isyan (Rebellion
to Destruction). A prominent figure in the
contemporary Turkish art scene since the
mid-1990s, Altindere’s work focuses on
contemporary issues of belonging, belief and
alienation.
The music video comes to an end when the
rappers are shot repeatedly in the torso by the
police. They keep on singing as blood slowly
bubbles and pours from their wounds. After
the end credits, I did not move from where I sat
down. With several other viewers, I watched
the nine-minute video from start to end
numerous times. A realization occurred when
I heard a young man in the video, who had
handcuffed himself to a construction vehicle,
rap the words, “You say you understand the
worries so give me an answer.” I left the
exhibition room with a question on my mind:
can this artwork actually incite action from
Right: Installation view. Image
courtesy of the author.
Opposite page: Halil Altindere.
Wonderland. 2013. HD video:
color/sound. Courtesy the artist
and Pilot Galeri, Istanbul.
its passive viewers? Because surely, the work
desires something more than simply the tap
of one’s foot.
Altindere’s work focuses
on contemporary issues
of belonging, belief, and
alienation.
75