New New English Original bdg. Dust wrapper. 4to. (30 x 25 cm). In English and Turkish. 333, [2] p., color and b/w ills. Ömer Uluç. Bird of desire circles without end.= Heves kusu durmaz döner. [Exhibition catalogue]. Edited by Mine Haydaroglu. In the autumn of 1954 I found myself out of breath on a backstreet in Manhattan. After having managed to get out of those large turnstiles, I was in a street in New York, heading for something new. Then Boston, Beacon Hill, New York again. New freedom, roads, a car, a one-room studio, furnished, rented by the week, by the month, everything was fast. Anyway, my first exhibition in Boston took place in the fantastic venue of that wild black dandy, Earl Pilgrim, who when he was drunk claimed to be white and thought he was a reincarnation of Oscar Wilde. He had tuberculosis, and his little Syrian wife gave him milk to drink when he was sober. At a party in the house of a white man, he tried to turn the house owner out of his house, calling him a dirty nigger, saying 'Dirty nigger, what are you doing here, just a little while ago you went and gobbled food in the kitchen.''Then I read about this in Faulkner. Meanwhile my strange exhibition was held at Earl Pilgrim's, in the mood of that Beat Generation. It was as if we were living in their world. Jack Kerouac's On the Road, Subterranean, Ginsberg's poem 'Howl,' then all the Ferlenghettis, Gregory Corsos, and of course, the strangest of them all, William Burroughs, perhaps one of the weirdest and greatest writers in all America, who when aiming at the apple on his wife's head, accidentally killed her. Going to Miami, Highway Number 1, the migration of mythological, eccentric souls from cold to warm. Then, more journeys and New York. Later on, training in the visual arts, that strange and extremely unique creativity class, large women tearing up coloured paper into tiny pieces making collages, tiny artists endeavouring to put huge masses on top of one another, and so on. The time to return was approaching. Maya Gallery Ö.U.: I returned to Istanbul, and the first place I went to was the Maya Gallery, Adalet Cimcoz and Lambo. Those were the people and places I left behind, and now they were gone. Nuri Iyem had left his old studio and was now in Karaköy. I saw Istanbul as if it were in ruins. One reason was Adnan Menderes' rebuilding programme. He demolished buildings everywhere. The other one was Istanbul itself. After the single party period the left-wing movement began in Turkey, during the last years of Democrat Party rule. Ilhan Koman and Sadi Çalik Ö.U.: It was 1958, and I was 27. Nuri Iyem, Ferruh Basaga, dear Ilhan Koman and Sadi Çalik and I were opening a large and memorable exhibition at the American Consulate. All pieces of work were abstract. They were my friends and at least 10 or 20 years older than me. There in Istanbul, in that circle, I attained a second small fame for myself and in a strange way. But let me tell you about who did the most interesting work. Sadi Çalik put a single stick on a plinth and called it 'minimumism,' that's how he explained it. Minimum energy, minimum form, minimum meaning, and so on. People began to wonder if Istanbul was a small centre of the avant-garde like Moscow and Munich were at one time. Turgut Cansever and Sezer Tansug Ö.U.: But let's get on. I was working at full speed. There was an exhibition and I met Turgut Cansever. He was a very interesting person, one of the most interesting people I have ever known. And then there was Sezer Tansug, the art historian and critic. Both were people who knew the east and the Ottomans in particular, even if they differed on some topics. Those two were very creative people, and broadened my horizons. I think I also expanded their, especially Sezer Tansug's, horizons. Turgut Cansever was doing free drawings of the old city, and they were extraordinary. He suggested that I work on the drawings of the paving of Beyazit Square. Lissabon Gallery Ö.U.: The new paintings, coloured, ac
