'Lost Shadows' in Istanbul explores time and geography

Vahap Av?ar?s one-person exhibition titled ?Lost Shadows? has recently opened in the Forum at SALT Beyo?lu. 

The exhibition consists of 50 photographs selected by Av?ar from thousands of images found in the AND Publishing Company archive.

The artist has been working on found imagery and issues of representation in printed materials such as posters, postcards and advertisements for 25 years. In 2010 Av?ar procured the rights to AND?s exhaustive inventory. 

The works in the exhibition comprise images that never made it into print circulation. In ?Lost Shadows? they are printed in rather large but identical dimensions and stand, wedged in self-supporting concrete bases.

Forming a ?forest of imagery,? the overall installation summons back the open and democratic exhibition approach of architect Lina Bo Bardi in the Sao Paulo Art Museum in 1968.

?Lost Shadows? speaks of an era when there was neither direct calling nor the internet; a time when it was common practice to send postcards with panoramas of far-away landscapes from a holiday, exile, or compulsory military service, to family members, friends and lovers.

Photographic journey 

The AND collection delivers a photographic journey initiated by photography safaris all around Anatolia beginning in the late 1970s. 

Wandering from village to village, the photographers, commissioned by AND, documented the streets, squares, buildings and the region?s distinctive geography to be used as postcards and posters. 

The images capture a specific time of the geography. Signs and symbols, customs, gestures and body language, economics and even the politics of the era can be traced in the photographs. 

The exhibition ?Lost Shadows? will continue...