First Edition of “Winter Video Days” at the New National Museum of Monaco Presents Turkish Artist Ali Kazma
His works raise fundamental questions about the meaning of human activities in the economic, industrial, scientific, medical, social or artistic fields. each of his videos describes the changes of our society. The artist shoots and edits all his videos himself.
Born in 1971, Ali Kazma lives between Istanbul and Paris. He graduated from the University of Colorado in Boulder and obtained his master’s degree from the New School University in New York. Ali Kazma represented Turkey at the 55th Venice Biennale in 2013 and had a monographic exhibition at the Jeu de Paume in Paris in 2017. The most important solo exhibitions are Albergo Diurno Venezia (Milan, 2018), MUNTREF (Buenos Aires, 2018), Arter (Istanbul, 2015), Hirshhorn Museum (Washington, D.C., 2010), TANAS (Berlin, 2010) and Platform Garanti (Istanbul, 2004). His works are included in numerous institutional collections, such as CNAP (Paris), Istanbul Modern, MEP (Paris), MONA (Tasmania), Sztuki Museum (Lodz), Tate Modern (London), TBA21 (Vienna), Fondation Louis Vuitton collection (Paris) and the VKV Foundation collection (Istanbul).
H.R.H Princess of Hanovre and artist Ali Kazma. Photo: Direction de la Communication/ Michael Alesi
The exhibition at the NNMM is created around three videos:
Top Fuel (2020). This fifteen minute video is dedicated to Anita Mäkelä, Finnish drag-racer. Kazma traveled to California, Germany and then Sweden to be able to film the race. It shows the meticulous and patient preparation necessary for Anita Mäkelä and her team to convey by contrast the real character of her races. Top Fuel is not a documentary about drag racing but a meditation on time and the quest for the absolute.
The video is completed by a series of photographs taken during video’s preparation.
A House of Ink (2022) and Sentimental (2022). How to show the writing process? Ali Kazma questioned himself when he accepted the proposal of his compatriot Orhan Pamuk, Nobel Prize winner in literature, to come to his home and film him at his large and empty apartment in Istanbul in the district of Cihangir.
In the first video, A House of Ink (2022), Ali Kazma presents on three screens the details of the Turkish writer’s apartment, his manuscripts, his library, brief moments of life, etc., reveal his inner world.
A second video, Sentimental (2022), is a brief exchange between the writer and the videographer after days of silent shooting.*
Come discover the first edition of “Winter Video Days” from December 16 to January 15, 2023 at Villa Sauber, 17, avenue Princesse Grace, 98000 Monaco.