Erdem Taşdelen: The Characters: Act II
to
A.K.A. Gallery 424 20 St W, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan S7M 0X4
Erdem Taşdelen, "The Characters: Act I," 2019
installation view: Untitled Art Society (in partnership with EMMEDIA), Calgary (AB), 2019. (Photo: Katy Whitt).
Erdem Taşdelen: The Characters: Act II
Curated by Natasha Chaykowski
Opening Reception AKA artist-run centre: Thursday, February 13th, 2020 at 7pm
Artist Talk University of Saskatchewan: Friday, February 14th, 2020 at 12 pm
Writing Workshop AKA artist-run centre: Friday, February 14th, 2020 at 4 pm
The first set of stock characters in history is thought to be a series of thirty short textual sketches written by Theophrastus, a Greek author of the 4th century BCE. Better known as the “father of botany,” Theophrastus produced these descriptions to represent types of people, such as “The Lover of Bad Company,” “The Pennypincher” and “The Late Learner.” Peculiarly, all of these thirty types, together titled The Characters, depict negative traits. Some scholars have speculated that a supplementary volume comprising positive types must also have existed, or at least been planned. In the absence of this accompanying volume, however, The Characters takes on an absurd quality through its rather bleak presentation of human nature.
An exercise in dramaturgy and dystopian reflection, Erdem Taşdelen’s audio installation The Characters: Act II follows the scheming, bigoted, flippant, condescending, power-hungry, occasionally tragic and often mordantly wry narratives of ten stock characters. With their defining traits borrowed from Theophrastus’s text and developed by the artist into scripts for voice actors, these fictional characters are recognizable, archetypal: each a distinct form whose whole being is engendered by a distillation of a single trait or set of behaviours and thoughts.
In this second act of three, the exhibition comprises ten idiosyncratic monologues, connected by their shared commitment to portray the less palatable aspects of humankind. Insidious nationalism-cum-tacit fascism, rampant self-obsession and false prophesizing abound, resonating with our contemporary social, political and economic realities. From this cacophony, a strangely recognizable din of dystopia emerges, offering an uncanny reflection of ourselves—amalgams of archetypes—as the cast.