Thomas Radbruch: Rusty End

In the exhibition "Rusty End", Istanbul Modern’s parking lot presented photographs taken by Thomas Radbruch in the automobile graveyards in various countries of the world. The exhibition consisted of 26 works, which convey stories of both past and present.

Stating that "a kind of nobility emerges from outdated fashions" Thomas Radbruch talks about abandoned automobiles as follows: Art springs from their frailty, justifying Thomas Mann’s thesis on the mutual relativity of illness, death and art. These racers have congregated for a quiet existence – and still-lives emerge. A great back-to-nature tolls over them. Impressive markings and inscriptions mutate to secret messages, begging to be deciphered. But something very odd is happening: these automobiles which originally manifested the absolute opposite of all introspective, meditative existence, whose very being had meant speeding away from everywhere, have now found their home and are striking roots. These facades, with arrogant pretensions of trying to span the ‘myth and technology divide’, seem almost touching in their decaying adherence to a redundant vision of beauty.

Thomas Radbruch indicates that abandoned cars, which rot the atmosphere of squares and streets around the world with the smell of death and transform sacred places into wastelands, get covered with leaves of rust and become deserted temples reserved for insect nests or are left to decay. Radbruch expresses that these cars quietly mature among the fern and weeds, which with their light swaying give a feeling of forgiveness, and that as corpses decompose these automobiles come to life.

Curator: Engin Özendes