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Lot Essay
In her multidisciplinary practice, Hera Büyüktaşcıyan uses notions of absence and invisibility in order to anchor memory through unseen and forgotten aspects of time, space and architectural memory. Through her sculptures, site-specific interventions, drawings and films, Büyüktaşcıyan explores ruptures in socio-political history by unearthing patterns and narratives that unfold in the material memory of ‘unstable spaces’.
Linking contemporary and historic timelines, Soma Vol. I—the title Soma translates to ‘body’ in Ancient Greek—is a series of four graphite frottage drawings that incorporate cut-outs from archival photographs of archaeological excavations of Byzantine neighbourhoods in Istanbul that have been destroyed, rebuilt, and repurposed many times throughout history. These suspended architectural forms emerge out of four ghostly, highly textural graphite compositions. Each one synthesises a new ‘body’ that traces various historic moments and passages of time.
Hera Büyüktaşcıyan was born in Istanbul in 1984, and graduated from Marmara University, Faculty of Fine Arts’ painting department in 2006. She was awarded the Emerging Artist Prize at the Toronto Biennial of Art in 2019, and has exhibited internationally including at the 23rd Biennale of Sydney, Australia, 2022; Soft Water Hard Stone, New Museum Triennial, New York, 2021; and Reflections: Contemporary Art of the Middle East and North Africa, The British Museum, London, 2021. Büyüktaşcıyan’s work also featured in Armenity at the Armenian Pavilion of the 56th Venice Biennale, 2015, which won the Golden Lion. She lives and works in Istanbul, Turkey.
Linking contemporary and historic timelines, Soma Vol. I—the title Soma translates to ‘body’ in Ancient Greek—is a series of four graphite frottage drawings that incorporate cut-outs from archival photographs of archaeological excavations of Byzantine neighbourhoods in Istanbul that have been destroyed, rebuilt, and repurposed many times throughout history. These suspended architectural forms emerge out of four ghostly, highly textural graphite compositions. Each one synthesises a new ‘body’ that traces various historic moments and passages of time.
Hera Büyüktaşcıyan was born in Istanbul in 1984, and graduated from Marmara University, Faculty of Fine Arts’ painting department in 2006. She was awarded the Emerging Artist Prize at the Toronto Biennial of Art in 2019, and has exhibited internationally including at the 23rd Biennale of Sydney, Australia, 2022; Soft Water Hard Stone, New Museum Triennial, New York, 2021; and Reflections: Contemporary Art of the Middle East and North Africa, The British Museum, London, 2021. Büyüktaşcıyan’s work also featured in Armenity at the Armenian Pavilion of the 56th Venice Biennale, 2015, which won the Golden Lion. She lives and works in Istanbul, Turkey.