MERISTEME | Ömer Faruk Kaplan

MERISTEME
Bärbel Praun
Isabell Schulte
Ömer Faruk Kaplan
Yannick Riemer
Sophia Domagała
curated by Felix Becker

Territorial Monuments (2024) is the name Ömer Faruk Kaplan has given his rectangular concrete castings, which have a sculptural, almost architectural appearance thanks to their resolutely placed, geometric incisions and carvings. Mounted on the wall, they also immediately take on a painting-like quality, as their surfaces display slightly different colour nuances. Kaplan reinforces the focus on the surface by placing vinyl strips in the moulds, which leave narrow grooves on the concrete. These are often only visible on the finished work when the light refracts off the surface in a certain way. Minimalist, graphic reliefs, which repeatedly withdraw from the viewer's gaze, cover a material that symbolises oversize, hardness and consistency like almost no other. In contrast, the exhibition features the work Line (2022), which consists of two plasterboards, each ofwhich has a striking vertical line running through it. Hanging one above the other in an offset position,the lines become a connecting element that emphasises both the relationship between the two partsand the space between them - another gap that merges into the architecture of the gallery space. And so it becomes clear that Kaplan’sworks are space-related. Consisting of materials that are used in an architectural context, they become points of reference through artisticplacement, engaging in a symbiotic relationship with the exhibition space by embracing, reflecting and realigning it.