Ferhat Özgür - The Will Or The Well Commandments

Art in the Elevator
Since the summer of 2019, the museum has been using the monitors of the MönchsbergAufzug as an extended exhibition space. Videos and filmic works by both internationally renowned and young artists are presented for three months at a time. Thematically, the program is informed by current exhibitions, while at the same time offering a glimpse into the museum’s own media collection.

The work of Ferhat Özgür (1965 Ankara, TR—Istanbul, TR) is predominantly concerned with social, political, and cultural aspects of the artist’s immediate environment in Turkey and examines his position as a Turkish artist in an international context. He enjoys experimenting with a variety of materials and his practice thus spans a wide range of media, from painting, drawing, and photography to performance, installation, and video.

In his video The Will, the artist, lying on what appears to be his deathbed, informs his family about his last will: in ten requests—a reference to the Ten Commandments—he humourously reflects not only on his own artistic career, but also satirizes the problematic perception and presentation of non-Western artists compared to Western art and its history. At the same time, he questions the role of the artist and of art in general, especially under the challenging political and cultural conditions for contemporary artists in Turkey.