<<< BEDRİ BAYKAM IS SHOWING HIS 80’s CALIFORNİA PERİOD AT THE MAC ART GALLERY İN ISTANBUL: “THE EARLY YEARS of THE NEO-EXPRESSIONIST MOVEMENT” FEBRUARY 27 – MARCH 30 2009 The Turkish contemporary artist Bedri Baykam is having a show of his Neo-Expressionist work from his 80’s, California period, at the Mac Art Gallery in Nisantasi, Istanbul. Baykam is the most prominent member of the neo-expressionist movement from the 80’s in Turkey. The movement was labeled as such in 1982 when several artists from different countries such as Italy, Germany, USA, England and Italy started doing loosely painted large expressionist canvases in the late seventies, early eighties, painting their own fantasies on the canvas. Those artists made paralel works without being aware of each other untill their work started to attract common attention. Baykam has also another unique situation regarding his presence within this movement. Neo-Expressionism, as shown both in the USA and in Turkey in those years, was the first movement that the Turkish art scene lived simultaneously with the West. The works of the 80’s, came as a reaction to the coldness of the minimal, conceptual and photorealistic works from the seventies. The artist places himself at the center of the art work again and uses a free language throught the help of all mediums. Collage, graffiti, large size, with references to art history or iconographies from daily or personal life. The most well known artists from the period are Rainer Fetting, Anselm Kiefer (Germany), Julian Schnabel, David Salle (USA), Francesco Clemente, Sandro Chia (Italy). Baykam’s work evolved out of that period towards more political works with conceptual inclinations. In 1984, Baykam, had written his manifesto entitled “Modern Art History is a Western Fait Accompli” which was distributed at the San Francisco Museum of Modern art. This was the first public rebellion of non-Western art against the monopoly of a Western establishment that Baykam accused of “writing history only for themselves”. The manifesto which some years later became the book “Monkey’s Right to Paint” was a Pioneer step on the road to Multiculturalism. Baykam’s famous works from the eighties such as “ The Prostitute’s Room”, “Danton didn’t Lose his Blood for Nothing”, “New York is the Sea to Drink”, “Inner Landscape” series, “I do the Best” that I can” be seen at the Mac Art Gallery till March 30, 2009. A catalogue with a foreword by art historian Ümit gezgin was put together on the occasion by Mac Art Gallery.