Kutlug Ataman, Brighton Festival/Thomas Dane Gallery, London

Two beguiling film installations by the Turkish artist

by Fisun GunerSunday, 22 May 2011

'Mayhem' features the Bosphorus, the narrow strip of water separating Europe and Asia

One of the highlights of this year’s Brighton Festival, curated largely via web chats and long-distance phone conversations by Aung San Suu Kyi, is Kutlug Ataman’s silent film installation Mesopotamian Dramaturgies. The leading Turkish artist, a favourite of international biennales and arts festivals, has taken over the town’s Old Municipal Market to show two multiple-screen works. And in this vast, disused space, as gloomily dark and dank as it is cavernous, we find the perfect backdrop against which Ataman’s films shine.

This is Impressionism recreated as film and dazzlingly presented as Colour Field painting

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