In Cornucopia 44 Maureen Freely talked to Metehan Özcan about his haunting images of abandoned Erenköy flats, cringingly yet heart-breakingly redolent of murky 1970s glitz. They were the subject of an exhibition at the aptly named gallery at the Koç American Hospital in Nişantaşı, the Operation Room (always worth a visit, followed by a Rokoko icecream in the hospital’s Divan Pastane). The following year, it became a book, Vacuum (2010). Özcan’s second solo show, Illustrated Information, was at the Elipses Gallery in 2013. His third Dekor, now on at the Versus gallery, highlights the relationships between contemporary design and society. Versus have combined it with Özcan’s Recipes No. 24, from the Places of Memory collective exhibition in the Turkish Pavilion at the Venice Biennale’s 2014 International Architecture Exhibition: the theme the Hukukçular Apartmanı in Şişli, a brutalist 1957–67 housing project designed by Haluk Baysal and Melih Birsel.
Issue 66, December 2023
Turkey’s Centenary Issue
