Erdağ Aksel, 1953

Erdağ Aksel received a BFA from West Virginia University Creative Arts Center, continuing with an MA in sculpture at the same institution between 1977 and 1979. As a student, Aksel began exploring how space and environment influence art while also producing realistic paintings. Starting in 1985, he turned to sculpture and also took an interest in photography, installation, and conceptual art.

Aksel produces works that explore the purpose and meaning inherent to various objects, as well as the technical or cultural contexts surrounding them. Reflecting on the meaning, function, and context of spaces and objects, the work touches on conflicting concepts that reference consumerist society, which pervades life, culture, and systems. It thus goes beyond the physical state of objects and focuses on their historical, political, and/or psychological connotations. The series “Objects of Tension”, “Objects of Hesitation”, and “Objects of Beauty” epitomize this approach.

The sculpture “Suzan II,” from “Objects of Hesitation”, is an assemblage composed of two ready-made objects: a surveyor’s tripod and folding rules. With its references to hair and legs and woman’s name, it calls to mind an abstracted human figure. “Her” yellow hair blowing in the wind also references certain problematics of the production and history of sculpture. While the folding rules lend movement and emotion, they also clearly reference measurement and balance, and critique today’s value system in which a woman is defined in terms of measurements of her body, hair, height, and weight.