Intermissions: Özgür Kar

Sat, Apr 22–Sun, Apr 23, 2023

12 – 8PM EACH DAY

Özgür Kar creates inventive installations that feature eye-catching black-and-white animations. While each of his projects hints at different stories and explores new configurations in space, they often function like multi-part soundscapes and deconstructed theater pieces: isolated figures become performers, appearing in looping scenes that are at once austere and emotion-filled. While honing his own style in these works, Kar riffs on traditions like dance macabre, experimental theatre in the vein of Samuel Beckett, early animated films and more recent cartoons. In April 2023, Kar will take over the Renaissance Society’s large, acoustically resonant space as part of the Intermissions series, presenting a new site-specific installation that draws out the performative undercurrents of his practice and leans into the possibilities of a “live” format without human actors.

Curated by Karsten Lund.

Özgür Kar (b. 1992 in Ankara, Turkey) lives and works in Amsterdam, Netherlands. He is a graduate of the Gerrit Rietveld Academie and the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten. He has recently had solo exhibitions at the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Kunstverein Gartenhaus, Vienna; Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris; Liebaert Projects, Kortrijk, Belgium; Emalin, London; and Édouard Montassut, Paris. His work is featured in the 16th Lyon Biennale of Contemporary Art, and has been included in group exhibition and screenings at Jeu de Paume, Paris; Quinta do Quetzal, Vidigueira, Portugal; Palais de Tokyo, Paris; CAC, Bretigny, France; Frans Hals Museum, Haarlem; and the 16th Venice Architecture Biennale; as well as other museums and galleries. Kar received the Volkskrant Visual Arts Prize in 2020.

Support for this presentation by Özgür Kar has been provided by SAHA – Supporting Contemporary Art from Turkey, www.saha.org.tr; and the Mondriaan Fund, the Dutch public cultural funding organization focusing on visual arts and cultural heritage. This program is also supported as part of the Dutch Culture USA program by the Consulate General of the Netherlands in New York.

Intermissions launched at the Renaissance Society in January 2017 as a new programming series devoted to performance and other innovative time-based works, staged in the Renaissance Society empty space in between exhibitions. This recurring platform presents two events every year, supporting a wide variety of live projects.

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