Köken Ergun, Özgür Kar

Sydney Biennale | Australia

SAHA supports Köken Ergun and Özgür Kar's project at the 24th Biennale of Sydney, organized between March 9 - June 10, 2024. Curated by Cosmin Costinas and Inti Guerrero, Ten Thousand Suns presents works from all continents and across time zones, across borders that separate cultural practices based on different genealogies. Köken Ergun was invited by the Biennale of Sydney with HEROES, DEAD, TOURISM (2024), a multi-channel video reworking of Heroes. Özgür Kar is producing an LED wall installation on a scale unprecedented in his practice, unique to the Boiler Room at White Power Bay Station, which will open its doors for the first time for the biennial. The artist continues to work with the leitmotif of the dancing skeleton or dance macabre, titled Death's Horn, and the Birds.

About Köken Ergun
Köken Ergun (1976, Istanbul) is an artist working in film and installation. His films often deal with communities that are not known to a greater public and the importance of ritual in such groups. Ergun usually spends long time with his subjects before he starts filming and engages in a long research period for his projects. He also collaborates with ethnographers, historians and sociologists for publications and lecture series as extensions to his artistic practice ERGUN studied acting at Istanbul University, completed his postgraduate degree in ancient Greek literature at King’s College London, and earned an MA in art history at the Bilgi University, Istanbul. After working with American theater director Robert Wilson, Ergun became involved with video and film. His video installations have been exhibited at Kathmandu Triennale 2077; Jakarta Biennial: ESOK; Documenta 14; Palais de Tokyo, Paris; SALT, Istanbul; Stedelijk Museum Bureau Amsterdam; and Casino Luxembourg. Ergun’s films have received the Tiger Award for Short Film at the 2007 Rotterdam Film Festival and the Special Mention Prize at the 2013 Berlinale.

About Özgür Kar
Özgür Kar (b. 1992 in Ankara, Turkey) lives and works in Amsterdam, Netherlands. Kar’s works assemble in space to function as scenes from theatre pieces: each serves as a character playing its part within a non-linear score and script. Working with voice actors and instrumentalists, Kar produces multi-part soundscapes that unfold through solemn repetition, forging existential dread mixed with cartoonish macabre. Stoic in their contemplation, his minimally animated drawings are set in imperceptible loops that turn videos into sculptures confined within the edge of television screens. Beyond the camp-ness of macabre, or the grotesque anxiety of death juxtaposed with cartoonish figures, the theatricality of Kar’s work is set in tonal displays of contemporary existentialism.

About Biennale of Sydney and 24th Edition
The Biennale of Sydney is one of the leading international contemporary art events in the world. It is the pre-eminent and longest-running biennial in the Asia-Pacific region, and the largest exhibition of its kind in Australia. Held every two years, the Biennale is a three-month exhibition, with an accompanying program of artist talks, performances, forums, guided tours, family days and other special events. Today it ranks as one of the leading international festivals of contemporary art and continues to be recognised for presenting the freshest and most provocative art from Australia and around the world.

The 24th Biennale of Sydney proposes celebration as both a method and a source of joy, produced in common and broadly shared, drawing inspiration from histories of queer coming-together to thrive in spite of it all. It invokes a spirit of abundance and generosity as powerful political tools. This edition revisits legacies of collective resistance, strength, and exuberance, while celebrating the exhibition as a carnival of rays and radiance, aptly titled Ten Thousand Suns. The 24th Biennale of Sydney takes place across multiple sites in Sydney.