Kutlug Ataman. Twelve 2003. Six-screen video installation. Courtesy the artist and Lehmann Maupin Gallery, New York.
In the second of four instalments, David Prudames introduces Kultug Ataman's contribution to the Turner Prize 2004 exhibition.
Kutlug Ataman’s work has been set up in the second room of the exhibition and in sharp contrast to the first, which contains work by Jeremy Deller, plunges the viewer into a darkened space.
Six screens, suspended at angles to one another fill it with pockets of bright light and the voices of six people.
Born in Istanbul in 1961, Kutlug Ataman studied film at the University of California and has pursued a career both as a film-maker and artist ever since.
Kutlug Ataman. Twelve 2003. Six-screen video installation. Courtesy the artist and Lehmann Maupin Gallery, New York.
His work has been shown around the world both in cinemas and art galleries, but it is for a piece made in 2003 that he has been short-listed for the Turner Prize this year.
Twelve was filmed in an Arab community near the Syrian border in south east Turkey. As a whole the community believes in reincarnation, but that only those who meet a sudden or untimely death will remember it. The six individuals featured in Ataman’s installation can all remember.
The camera work is modest and the pictures grainy as each individual sits and tells the story of his or her past lives. The viewer is treated as an intimate and encouraged to listen.
Shown in their homes or places of work, the men and women relate their stories in a totally matter-of-fact way. Yet there’s nothing matter-of-fact about what they are saying.
Kutlug Ataman. Twelve 2003. Six-screen video installation. Courtesy the artist and Lehmann Maupin Gallery, New York.
Each piece is fascinating and absorbing as time after time the viewer is asked to believe what they’re being told and understand what life is like when you’re reborn having left loved ones and children behind.
One man says that "death is so close to human beings" and explains how he screamed in pain as his cart was hit by a train. Another describes the difficulties of his relationships in this life with family from a past life: "You don’t know if you should talk to your kids like a friend or a father. We are the same age… I am torn inside."
The effect is incredibly disarming. Whether you believe in reincarnation or not it’s hard to react with much scepticism.
Unfortunately and in the current climate, it is also difficult to avoid the obvious connotations that a work set in the Middle East might have. According to the exhibition catalogue, Twelve was created in response to the current political situation in the region and shows one of the ways in which a community has come to make sense of horrific loss.
Kutlug Ataman. Twelve 2003. Six-screen video installation. Courtesy the artist and Lehmann Maupin Gallery, New York.
Here, as with most religions and, tellingly, in societies with a history of war or persecution where similar beliefs are held, death doesn’t need to feared, because the soul never dies.
Stools placed beside each screen allow individual viewing and subtitles translate the speech, but when wandered through and experienced as a unified piece of work, Twelve operates on a different level.
The fluctuating speech, its different tones emanating from different people, give the darkened space the feel of a crowded and busy public space, almost as if these souls are still in transit and this is where they’re grouped before moving on again.
Twelve is a powerful and moving experience, but like Jeremy Deller’s work next door, it elicits a subtle, introspective and thoughtful response.
