Murat Pulat mostly uses images from movies in his paintings. Godard movies in particular have a special place in his work. The artist's romanticism, which refers to the movies of the 1960s by using black and white in his paintings, is very similar to the secret romantic stance we use in our sweatshirts and t-shirts.
Seçil Alkış: You have had 3 solo exhibitions so far. Your 4th solo exhibition will be held in New York in January. What kind of mental and practical process do you go through while creating your exhibitions?
Murat Pulat: We are talking about a fiction that we have imprisoned within walls… When creating an exhibition, it is necessary to create other things that surround it rather than just belonging to that area, that local gallery. I really don't know that yet either.
SA: We will be able to see many of your recent works in your exhibition in New York. We see that you create illusions and increase color transitions in some of your works. I would like to talk about your recent works a little.
MP: I don’t actually distinguish the surface of a painting from a wall. While I’m doing other things, everyone else is thinking and talking about painting. For example, I’m trying to grow a lemon. Its leaves are wilting and I get sad. In fact, for me, painting is just one of the parts that make up the whole. I try to eliminate the things that oppress us from my life as much as I can, this is very useful. Especially today, people have started to play with images in an incredible way. Image is a very powerful thing, this is actually what I want to show and share before and after the exhibition. What people call virtual affects human psychology and sociological structure. Even if the masses are not artists, they are incorporated into art, while some don’t even think about it. People who deal with images get closer to us when art intervenes in this context and its use.
SA: Your first three exhibitions were held in Istanbul, this is the first time you are visiting another city and geography. What does this mean for you?
MP: Istanbul and New York are just cities. What are these cities? The sum of all perspectives on these. From what perspective should we look at Istanbul? I wanted to travel like Orhan Veli one day; I really did. To feel him, to be able to travel around Istanbul that way. In other words, to participate in the city in some way; no matter how passive or active. One day, a man says he sees the sea and then sees other things in it. Why do I say this? I feel responsible for the sum of other things. What I want to do is not to do the science of this, but to create different situations, different perspectives.
As I said, going is just part of the job. Here is the situation, we all get up in the morning and do something. I definitely put more work on the person who acts and does things before me. My mother has a story; for example, my house was very close to the school during my primary school years. Everyone got up early in the morning, but I had a different situation. For me, getting up early in the morning was a problem because I was very tired during the day and spent too much time at school, which was too limited for me. Despite this, I was a child who jumped when they touched me. I didn't know why I did this. What made me get up even though I didn't want to get up and go to school?
Actually for me the early situation here or more of an intuition, a bit of a pre-experimental period, is to reach this problem. I definitely put more work on the person who acts and does the work before me. If one more person gets up, things will be easier. Someone else will come with the cup. It will be a little faster and you won't be late for school, and then the next work will continue. I want to look at it from a collective perspective. The idea you come across on the street; let's say the idea of a beggar, let's say the coffee shop on the corner or the florist, all of these are a set of ideas. Yes, we can say life and leave, but it's not like that, it's really something that joins us non-stop.
SA: When you consider both the content and the commercial side of this work, Istanbul and New York are two incomparably different cities. How important is this to you?
An example we always give is that we hold an exhibition and we are beaten to get an article written about it, on the other hand, in New York, even the smallest exhibition results in dozens of articles being written about it.
A very serious world, a market that is subject to very serious criticism…
MP: Van Gogh is chasing crows while walking in the fields; when someone approaches while chasing crows, he always says: 'I have to go, I have to get to something now'. In other words, when he looks where he is going, he says 'it looks like the crows are following me'. He works so hard in the sun that he is almost painting the world. He is left with the canvas in his hand. The situation here is no different from the cycle we call the market. It is another situation that wants to show a situation of Van Gogh. It may seem like very different crazy thoughts, but this is really something related to the world. To go somewhere, to get some distance. My choice is not only New York, it is like going to Izmir.
SA: Contemporary art and the exhibition of works demand at least a holistic view, and more importantly, its spatial context. How does the connection between your works and the space on the one hand, and the space on the other hand, occur?
MP: Actually, I know that I touch on space in some of my works. A situation that was particularly important to me occurred. I had given a work to be exhibited at an auction. There was a frame from a Hitchcock film (the surprised woman), a woman screaming in the shower scene. A frame taken during the exhibition became more important to me than the painting itself. It was like a woman screaming about the current situation. Thus, the work began to work within itself.
SA: Is there anything like this in your New York exhibition?
MP: There is a film called Backstreets, starring Robert De Niro, and Breathless… An image from the past can be inclusive. This name includes several directors, directors who came after him, and even other things. What I am trying to say is that of course America, Hitchcock, was already there. Some people only see a film, but there is something that is intervened in; it can be called a motif, a portrait formed with letters or fonts. There is a film here that was directed much longer than this work, but from the moment it touches it, it is included in this exhibition in New York. For example, the work I prepared for the showcase is no longer a painting for me, it is the letters in the void surrounding the space. There is a situation there that turns into a wall. In fact, my imagination is the wall of that gallery.
SA: Can we say this? The important thing is that after you process the images, the images begin to live, function, and work from the moment they are exhibited and interact with the viewer.
MP: It works here too. I'm talking about a simple thing in my life actually. I sometimes put my pictures in my bedroom. Then one morning I woke up and saw something screaming in front of me. I know I jumped incredibly. Right in front of me, when I opened my eyes, there was a woman screaming, exactly like a portrait, because of the perspective, it looked like a real portrait. What we call an image is actually nothing more than the ideas we see in ordinary life. In other words, the more I multiply my perspective, the more I can actually see. The image is a bit of a simulation, but we shouldn't be afraid.
SA: Today's art is a much more chaotic field than before. While opportunities are increasing on one hand, young artists are going through many different tension lines, tiring processes and tests. What have you experienced as a young artist whose works are known? What do you recommend to younger artists coming after you?
MP: A few weeks ago, a tourist group decided to take photos from atop a train at the Haydarpaşa train station, and three of them were caught in a high voltage line. This major incident unfortunately stemmed from the authorities’ lack of care.
This is actually a study, an effort. The more we work, the more we will make each other's lives better. The manager working at this train station is the same way, as is the shipyard. It is necessary to look at it from a very complex perspective.
I don't just want to talk about artists. We can really make this an argument for art. But that can also be a tension. In short, I can say this; it needs to resist. Resist. If they are a little bit fond of their freedom...
The word "resistance" has also become somewhat popular in Turkey. I think concepts die when they become popular. It's like a poster of Che Guevara. It's emptied.
SA: You say that images lose their impact as they become more popular. Isn't Marilyn Monroe one of the most popular images in the world? We see Marilyn Monroe a lot in your work, I'm very curious about the reason for this.
MP: Sometimes the image itself does not represent its own sub-connections. I first saw Marilyn when I was a child. I felt it enter my inner self. It may sound too assertive, but it is actually that clear. Now this situation is a mixture that is connected to the outside in the first type. It is no different than the sun darkening my skin. We throw away many things from our memory from the millions of sequences of the movie we watch. Why do some images remain in our minds while we forget some things? Why do some things suddenly make us shiver at night and start to remember them, combine them with them, remind us to be afraid of the dark. This is a sensitive situation. What do people encounter while imagining? If you realize this, you can actually change it. When you understand it, you start to produce an incredible amount of mental production. I am not trying to bring something to the center, but let's say some things match each other, they multiply each other and that image now enters a different state, in other words, hybrid images emerge.
What I want to do is not to say something before the exhibition and direct the situation. For example, the encounters and circulations have not started yet. Right now, we are talking about things that are more related to the exhibition. We haven't actually experienced it yet. We haven't lived the process, but we talked about its potential in general.