Adel Abidin, Rosa Barba, Runa Islam - The Move

ARTER's new exhibition The Move presents works by Adel Abidin, Rosa Barba and Runa Islam. Curated by Başak Şenova, the project has been shaped around the notions of visual and aural perception, strategies of spatial and perceptual transformation, and constructions of conceptual territories through their diverse areas of artistic research.

The Move features three solo exhibitions; each exhibition has its own distinct characteristics and should be considered in its own context. Nevertheless, Şenova's curatorial methodology for this exhibition has been based on a calculated structure that was shaped in time by referring to the game of chess.

The exhibition opens on ARTER's ground floor where specific works by each artist are drawn together: a sculpture I Made a Circuit, then a Second Circuit (2010) by Rosa Barba, a sculpture-based wall installation Symphony (2012) by Adel Abidin, and a 16mm film Be The First To See What You See As You See It (2004) by Runa Islam.

The first floor contains the continuation of Adel Abidin's work Symphony, Hopscotch (2009), and Three Love Songs (2010), framed in the exhibition titled beyond.... The second floor presents four works by Rosa Barba under the title annotations: Coupez Ici (2012), The Hidden Conference: On the Discontinuous History of Things We See and Don't See (2010), Recorded Expansions of Infinite Things (2012), and Invisible Act (2010). Finally, Runa Islam's exhibition dogs devouring horses on the third floor is named after her work Emergence (2011) which the exhibition features, along with This Much is Uncertain (2009–2010) and Cabinet of Prototypes (2009–2010).

Adel Abidin * 1973, Baghdad, Iraq. Lives and works in Helsinki, Finland Adel Abidin's multi-media practice explores the complex relationships between culture, politics, and identity. Using a sharp palette of irony and humor, Abidin gravitates towards social situations dealing with elusive experiences and cultural alienation. Abidin uses his cross-cultural background to create a distinct visual language often entwined with sarcasm and paradox, while maintaining his ultimately humanistic approach. He recently exhibited at KIASMA Museum of Contemporary Art, Helsinki, The DA2 Domus Atrium 2002 Centre of Contemporary Art (Salamanca), Location One Gallery in New York City, the 10th Sharjah Biennale, the 52nd and the 54th Venice Biennale, the 17th Sydney Biennale, L'Institut du Monde Arabe (Paris), Aksanat (Istanbul) and Kunsthalle Winterthur (Switzerland).

Rosa Barba * 1972, Agrigento, Italy. Lives and works in Berlin. Rosa Barba's work considers the situations of cinema, be it the physical characteristics of celluloid, light, projector, and sound; the structures of narrative, or its often improbable people, places or stories. Barba takes a sculptural approach to film, often taking apart its elements to create new mobile objects or directing the camera at objects and landscapes with a particular attention to form. Recently, Barba has held solo exhibitions at Contemporary Art Museum (St. Louis, USA; 2012), Jeu de Paume (Paris, 2012), Kunsthaus Zürich (2012), Marfa Book Co. (Texas, 2012), Fondazione Galleria Civica - Center of Research on Contemporary Art (Trento, 2011), MART Museum (Rovereto, 2011), Kunstverein (Braunschweig, 2011), Tate Modern (London, 2010), Centre international d'art et du paysage (l'île de Vassivière, 2010), Center of Contemporary Arts (Tel Aviv, 2010), Stedelijk Museum Bureau (Amsterdam, 2007) and Baltic Art Center (Visby, Sweden, 2006).

Runa Islam * 1970, Dhaka, Bangladesh. Lives and works in London. Runa Islam's work challenges and explores the conceptual structures, materiality and histories of representation and visuality, often in relation to cinematographic and architectural concerns. Adopting diverse methods and approaches in the presentation of her work, she disrupts, alters and enhances visual and architectural space, drawing attention to the act of seeing and shifting our conceptions and perceptions. Recently, Runa Islam has held solo exhibitions at MoMA, New York (2011); SITE Santa Fe, (Santa Fe, New Mexico; 2011); Musée d'art Contemporain de Montréal (2010) and Museum of Contemporary Art (Sydney, 2010). Her recent group exhibitions include the 29th São Paulo Biennial (2010); the Museum of Modern Art Warsaw (2010); MACBA (Barcelona, 2009) and the 6th Asia Pacific Triennale (Queensland Art Museum, Brisbane, 2009).

Başak Şenova * 1970, Istanbul, Turkey Başak Şenova is a curator and designer. She has been writing on art, technology and media, initiating and developing projects and curating exhibitions since 1995. Şenova is the editor of art-ist 6, Kontrol Online Magazine, Lapses book series, UNCOVERED, and Aftermath, among other publications. She is an editorial correspondent for ibraaz.org and one of the founding members of NOMAD, as well as the organizer of "ctrl_alt_del" and "Upgrade!Istanbul." Şenova was the curator of the Pavilion of Turkey at the 53rd Venice Biennale (2009) and lectured as assistant professor at the Faculty of Communication, Kadir Has University, Istanbul (2006–2010). Her recent exhibition projects include Conscious in Coma (Goethe-Institut, Istanbul, 2006), Rejection Episodes (Vooruit Kunstencentrum, Gent, Belgium, 2006), Unrecorded (Aksanat, Istanbul, 2008), Soft Borders (São Paulo, Brazil, 2010) and Aftermath (Akbank Sanat, Istanbul, 2012). Currently, she co-curates UNCOVERED (2010–2013) in Cyprus and the 2nd Biennial of Contemporary Art, D-0 ARK Underground (2013), in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Adel Abidin, Rosa Barba, Runa Islam
The Move
Kurator: Basak Senova