“Nobody saw the war coming.
Battle taken shelter,
disguised,
crouching;
changing into the color of earth.
The blind eye did not see anything.”
(Fernand Leger, November 4, 1937)

Metin Çelik's new exhibition "Post-Apocalyptic" focuses on all kinds of destruction. Competition, enthusiasm for power, the desire for demolition and reconstruction of nature brings a new violation and destruction to what we have witnessed a lot.

Following the World War I, Fernand Leger “Nobody saw the war coming. Battle taken shelter, disguised, crouching; changing into the color of earth. The blind eye did not see anything.” The word implied that we were witnesses. And today we are witnesses of a destruction in a spiral of violence, which is ignored and perceived as ordinary by a community. So, where art is in ruin? Undoubtedly, art as an exception will try to maintain its existence as resistance. But art will also have share from the ruler’s desire for existence in all of his hegemony areas. These can be described as an idealized point of artistic resistance. When art is a witness to ignored violence and destruction ruler’s severity will be inevitable.

The exhibition within this destruction / building mechanics focuses on ever-narrowing of our space. Established and non-independent art institutions and all the practices that point out art is running out of oxygen against politics, Post-Apocalyptic (post-apocalyptic) is giving us a picture of the process. The artist shows a demolition at the harshest reconstructing the exhibition space.The feeling that the audience gets while entering into the torn walls, a ruin filled with piles of rubble brings him or her to the extremes of real life. When stepped inside facing with a dark-colored curtain with a sense of unease and anxiety, everything is changing and the audience finds himself or herself on a red carpet, in a room surrounded by walls smoke colored in front of two pictures… While the room feels safe appearing as a museum area, the competition and struggle of the reindeer in the works suggests that it is the reason for the ruin from outside you have just been through. And the opposition of two spaces rationally brings us to a doorsill; In the battle of these deer, who are in a struggle against each other, can we see the battle of the earth covered in colors as Fernand Leger said? Or did the 'blind eye see nothing' yet …?

The exhibition taking place within the neighbouring events of the 15th Istanbul Biennial was presented at the independent space Mebusan25.