Bedri Baykam
Simone Cappa
"Those who know Bedri know him for his energy. He writes, paints, talks and flirts as if Benzedrine ran through his veins, hair wild as Goya’s or Beethoven’s. He has called himself a ‘cultural guerilla’ and cultural warfare is his forte. He’s an agitator, a provocateur, revolutionary by definition in that he resists the easy path. Privileged and comfortable, popular and accomplished in his own country, Baykam refuses to settle for what he sees as a meager version of individual success–more shows, a larger catalog, another television appearance, a few more sold paintings.
"Eccentric, passionate and utterly convinced of the cultural and moral rightness of his actions, Baykam’s status in Turkey is allegedly as pronounced as Warhol’s was in New York…"
–David Applefield
Frank Magazine, Paris
Bedri Baykam has been Turkey’s most famous international artist since the 60s. He started his career as early as 1963 when he was only six years old. Baykam had numerous shows all over the world, in Europe and the USA. This was probably the greatest impact any wunderkind ever had in the art world.
He was also one of the very early Neo-Expressionists, working in that realm since the very beginning of the 80s when he was living in California, studying at the College of Arts and Crafts. His art refuses a specific pattern and flows between graffiti, free-figuration and an abstract use of paint, in very richly textured layers.
In those years, he started to write extensively. His first manifesto, "Modern Art History Is A Western Fait Accompli," distributed in San Francisco in 1984, marked his first rebellion on the contemporary Western art scene. Baykam attracted the attention of several important art historians like Peter Selz, Edward Lucie Smith, Otto Hahn and Beral Madra in those years. He had several one-man shows at the Stephen Wirtz Gallery (San Francisco), Daniel Templon (Paris), Wanda Reiff (Holland), and the Ataturk Cultural Center (Istanbul).
Baykam moved back to Istanbul in 1987 as the Turkish art scene was burgeoning. He was one of the founders of the Turkish Plastic Arts Association and his art started to become more and more political and three-dimensional as his subject matter got soaked with the inner burdens of the fragile Turkish democracy. At this time, he warned his country of the dangerous growth of Islamic fundamentalism, and staged major political shows depicting the slippery surface of the capricious and twisted paths of politics in the 20th century. His art started to mutate into big installations incorporating all of the five senses. His installations had a major impact in enabling the art scene to transcend the conservative minimal and conceptual installations of the time, diving into eroticism, politics and East-West tensions.
Baykam become more and more involved with politics in the mid-90s. He was elected to the Party Assembly Board of the Social Democrats. Meanwhile, he worked on a series called "Real Fakes," which gave a personal interpretation of famous pieces from art history, including Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, Le Dejeuner sur L’Herbe, and The Raft of the Medusa.
Baykam exhibits all over the world, like the Museum of the Revolution in Havana (1999), the Cairo Biennale (1999), Buenos Aires Biennial (2002), 9 Dragon Heads Korea (2005), and the Kochi Museum Japon (2005).
His incessant appetite for the opposite sex has always been among his favorite themes. His series "Girly Plots" is a fetish collage containing synthetic materials, special fabrics, zinc plates, and photos of the artist’s models taken internationally. He sandwiches prints of sexy nudes in painterly abstract transparent layers.
Baykam still enlivens his shows with his "Livart" installations such as "The Harem Intrigues" (Paris and Buenos Aires, 2002) or "Curatorial Schizophrenia" (Istanbul 2004). In the former, Baykam invited five young artists and challenged the curatorial system that he finds extremely oppressive for the independent artist. Baykam had 41 sheep and three shepherds brought to the Istanbul Ataturk Cultural Center on Christmas night. He asked the artists: "Do you want to be a sheep, with a curator as your shepherd? Or do you want to be an independent artist?"
Always at the heart of the artistic and political agenda, Baykam manages to stay young and controversial, an inspiring model for the spirit of two generations in his country. His numerous published books (19 in total, thus far) include his best-selling novel The Bone, which predicted the tragedy of 9/11 in graphic detail, ten months before it happened.
For more info: bedribaykam.com or www.lavignesbastille.com.
