6 Films 6 Women
Salt Beyoğlu
December 21 – December 28, 2019
Still from the film Gilda, 1946 © BG Films
Walk-in Cinema
In the catalog text that she wrote for her 1993 exhibition, Nur Koçak exclaims: “Yes, I love Kızılay Garden, Pekpak ice-creams, hotdogs from Piknik, and the American musicals shown at the Büyük Cinema!” When the young Nur, enamored by the magic of the cinema screen, was busy demanding autographs of Hollywood stars by writing them letters, Cahide Sonku (1919-1981) was at the top of her career both as an actress and a director.
Having won a scholarship from the Ministry of Education of the Republic of Turkey after receiving a classical training at the the State Academy of Fine Arts in Istanbul, Koçak moved to Paris where she started to produce photorealist paintings in 1973. Her two early photographic series expanded from consumer objects to female body: Fetish Objects (1974-1988) decontextualizes commercial photographs of popular nail polish, lipstick and perfume brands, while Object Women (1975-1979 depicts “anonymous” women in the advertisements as faceless bodies. The only female figure that the artist did not anonymize in her work was Sonku, the first female film star in Turkey.
Accompanying the last week of Nur Koçak’s Our Blissful Souvenirs exhibition, 6 Films 6 Women presents the 20th century’s cinema classics where women are regarded as objects of desire for male gaze as described by Laura Mulvey in the 1975 article “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema.” Comprising five Hollywood films and El Kızı [The Stranger’s Daughter], a 1966 Turkish film adapted from Orhan Kemal’s same-titled novel, the screening program is free and open to all.
PROGRAM
December 21, 16.00
Clarence G. Badger and Josef von Sternberg, It, 1927
December 24, 19.00
Charles Vidor, Gilda, 1946
December 25, 19.00
Elia Kazan, A Streetcar Named Desire, 1951
December 26, 19.00
Stanley Donen and Gene Kelly, Singin’ in the Rain, 1952
December 27, 19.00
Billy Wilder, Some Like It Hot, 1959
December 28, 15.00
Nejat Saydam, El Kızı [The Stranger’s Daughter], 1966
In the catalog text that she wrote for her 1993 exhibition, Nur Koçak exclaims: “Yes, I love Kızılay Garden, Pekpak ice-creams, hotdogs from Piknik, and the American musicals shown at the Büyük Cinema!” When the young Nur, enamored by the magic of the cinema screen, was busy demanding autographs of Hollywood stars by writing them letters, Cahide Sonku (1919-1981) was at the top of her career both as an actress and a director.
Having won a scholarship from the Ministry of Education of the Republic of Turkey after receiving a classical training at the the State Academy of Fine Arts in Istanbul, Koçak moved to Paris where she started to produce photorealist paintings in 1973. Her two early photographic series expanded from consumer objects to female body: Fetish Objects (1974-1988) decontextualizes commercial photographs of popular nail polish, lipstick and perfume brands, while Object Women (1975-1979 depicts “anonymous” women in the advertisements as faceless bodies. The only female figure that the artist did not anonymize in her work was Sonku, the first female film star in Turkey.
Accompanying the last week of Nur Koçak’s Our Blissful Souvenirs exhibition, 6 Films 6 Women presents the 20th century’s cinema classics where women are regarded as objects of desire for male gaze as described by Laura Mulvey in the 1975 article “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema.” Comprising five Hollywood films and El Kızı [The Stranger’s Daughter], a 1966 Turkish film adapted from Orhan Kemal’s same-titled novel, the screening program is free and open to all.
PROGRAM
December 21, 16.00
Clarence G. Badger and Josef von Sternberg, It, 1927
December 24, 19.00
Charles Vidor, Gilda, 1946
December 25, 19.00
Elia Kazan, A Streetcar Named Desire, 1951
December 26, 19.00
Stanley Donen and Gene Kelly, Singin’ in the Rain, 1952
December 27, 19.00
Billy Wilder, Some Like It Hot, 1959
December 28, 15.00
Nejat Saydam, El Kızı [The Stranger’s Daughter], 1966
