Sakir Gokcebag

Sakir Gokcebag was born in Denizli in 1965. He graduated from the Faculty of Fine Art at Marmara University in 1987. He completed his master’s degree (1990) and doctoral degree (1994) at his alma mater. He won the second prize in the State Painting and Sculpture Competition in Ankara in 1991. In the same year, he got a scholarship from the Austrian government for Summer Academy in Salzburg in 1991. Gökçeba? then received a scholarship from DAAD and went to Düsseldorf Academy between 1995 and 1996. He was awarded Markus Lüpertz Prize by Düsseldorf Academy in 1996. Gökçeba? has had many solo exhibitions and participated in numerous group exhibitions in Turkey and abroad.

Gökçebağ works predominantly in two media. On one hand, he has created photographic work, often crisp geometrical compositions of food. On the other hand, he is especially well-known for his sculptures and installations, in which he transforms everyday objects into hybrid entities. Gökçebağ combines different materials, substitutes one for another, changes the usual function of the object, and alters the position from which people view it. As such, oriental rugs replace the bottom of plastic buckets and toilet paper is used as the material of delicate sculptures. Rendering the familiar unfamiliar, in a way that the ordinary becomes extraordinary, Gökçebağ gives objects a new existence. Moreover, he does so with an incredible attention for the formal aesthetics of the objects he is working with, and a quirky sense of humour, resulting in calmly restrained, yet light and often funny works that undoubtedly reference the Duchampian ready-made.

Şakir Gökçebağ (1965, Denizli) is a Turkish-born visual artist who lives and works in Hamburg since 2001. His works have been exhibited widely in both solo- and group exhibitions in Germany and abroad, including “Reorientation” at Kunstverein Ludwigshafen, “Illegibility” at Art Stations Foundation Poznan, and participations at Art Brussels and Pulse Miami. He has also been the recipient of international grants and prizes, such as the Leo Breuer Prize, George Maciunas Prize and the Markus Lüpertz Prize.