Komet, 1941-2022

The artist, whose real name is Gürkan Coşkun, was inspired by the US rock band Bill Haley & His Comets when changing his name to Komet. He went to Paris on a government scholarship in 1971. Komet is one of the leading exponents of a critical-political approach to figuration that developed after 1970. In his early paintings, the artist depicted phenomena such as migration, the individual, and power relations through large groups of figures. In compositions that tend toward dark humor, human imagination and imagery, and the subconscious, Komet’s figures and spaces are usually situated within transparent layers of color, and the artist allows coincidences to come into play during his painting process. He has been interested in literature since his youth and has published poetry, which in turn led him to investigate philosophical concerns.

“Masks and Bergamasks” is titled after an expression from the nineteenth-century French poet Paul Verlaine’s poem Clair de lune (Moonlight). The term “mask” is a reference to masquerade balls or masked theater performances, and “Bergamask” refers to a type of dance and its accompanying music that originated in the city of Bergamo, Italy.