THE CHASTITY IN BRONZE OF THE FEMALE NUDE

On Ferit Özşen's sculptures 

Ever since the imposition of a taboo, originating from the 3-dimensional nightmarish plasticity of the masses has taken place, it would not be wrong to assume that there must’ve been a process of resistance against it, running counterpoint to the imposition itself. However, a 120 cm tall statue of Eve and the past she implies doesn’t coincide with my experience, more than being a peer of mine. Moreover, the fact that it has been shipped over here from a workshop in the West, where nudity has become almost wearisome, doesn’t cancel any route to interpretation this mostly forgotten Eve of ours lays bare. The history of the formalist liberation that the contemporary Turkish sculpting scene is going through via the emphasis on the female and the nude, is only as much as the naked experiences I’ve had, in my lifetime of so-called liberty. It seems like the reality of a shy but reckless nudity that transcends the taboos, where the shadows of naked dreams are cast, has decided on an act of defiance that challenges the very nakedness it puts forth. However, where female nudes have conquered the truths of the plastic mass, there arrives a challenge against a nudity found, nowhere less than, in a rut. Recently, the giant nude sculpture with huge breasts placed in the plaza of Karaköy and said to be a symbol of Istanbul, was relieved of this symbolic function, precisely because it wasn’t referring to the massive greed that causes the ongoing construction of brothels of consumption, but allegedly pointed towards the actual brothels of Karaköy. Those who understand nudity as a symbol of modern liberty put forth such an exhibition that, once the ostensible function of the cast of the nude model Deniz was complete, they didn’t hesitate to cast her into the currents of the Bosporus. Although in this act one sees the stain of conceptualizing the nude as a morbid adventure with a corpse, there also lies a memory of resistance to the aforementioned reaction. 

The problem of the nude in contemporary Turkish sculpture, spanning from Hadi Bara’s Eve, to Gürdal Duyar’s Istanbul, has not yet gone beyond a frigid allegory in its attempt to describe the real, tangible, fleshy magic of nudity. The series of nudes that Ferit Özşen has completed, as if waiting for the right moment amidst all this controversy, through his analysis of real body contours on the plastic mass by making the casts of the nude model, not only bears trace of a mastery in realistic anatomical detail, but also displays a sense of humour in the bodies’ performances, drenched in fantasies of expression and gesture. Among these nudes that bear witness to an avid interest in the curves and crevices of the female body, the pregnant one rests in a silence that connotes a state of preparation to give birth to a new level of expression. While some of these women stand heedless with their bronze hips, in contrast to the ones who have stooped low into the status of promotional toys that spring from the bog of today’s media, they nevertheless resist becoming capital for the brothels of consumption. 

Sezer Tansuğ