Hüseyin Bahri Alptekin
Winter Depression , 1998-2011
Alptekin was always thinking about the relations between banality, boredom and depression in the modern world. From his own experiences, the artist believed that resignation to depression was superior to struggling with it. Rather, the mental space of depression was for him an alternative form of reality and wisdom, and was the source of inspiration for much of his practice. He created numerous installations about depression, each including the central presence of the psychoanalyst’s divan used for diagnosing patients. The first of these was Artist in Depression, which is a simple, rather clinical setting with a hospital screen and other curious objects such as boxing gloves and a massage roller.
The divan in Winter Depression is surrounded by a blown-up image of a cinema audience wearing 3D glasses taken from the cover of artist and Marxist theorist Guy Debord’s book Society of the Spectacle (1967), considered the main and most influential text for the Situationist movement. In this setting, a salted carp, dry and motionless as if jaded, lies on the divan (which actually belonged to Alptekin’s father, a doctor), articulating depression as symptomatic of today’s society.
The artist once said: “I believe depression is another way of perceiving and conceiving life. Through depression we can reach new modes of consciousness and only art can decode and transform it into a joyful cognition”.
