A love story you’ll never know – On the work of Adnan Turani
She lies naked on the bed. Scorching sun falls on her stomach. Summer Ankara rumbles and screeches outside. But you can’t see the city. Only blue rectangle of the sky in the window frame.
Adnan sits in the chair.
Her: Don’t ever paint me.
Adnan reaches for one of the brushes and breaks it with his hands. He reaches for another one. Breaks it too.
Her: Those are expensive, aren’t they?
Adnan: Very.
Third brush in his hands, it’s a thick one. He bends it – it doesn’t break.
Her: Do you need help?
With a knife he starts chopping at the brush.
Her: What is this?
Adnan: What?
Her: Why are you doing this?
He gives up. Throws knife on the table.
Adnan: Obeying your order.
Her: What order?
Adnan: If I’m not allowed to paint you, might as well quit being an artist.
He holds up disfigured brush.
Adnan: But I guess that’s impossible.
She gets up, puts on her clothes.
Her: Don’t be dramatic.
She leaves the room. He sits there, looking at the creases on the bed sheet, where she was just lying. The folds and bumps in the strong afternoon sunlight form curves and lines, ornaments and hieroglyphs. And the more Adnan looks at them, the more he sees. One second the lines form an image of a chicken, the next – it’s a violin, couple of seconds later it’s a pigeon and then – a portrait of someone he has never met. Folds and creases are abstract, but they always form something familiar, something very close to heart. Spontaneously but precisely. And whatever image they form in the artist’s mind – they always carry on her scent.
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The scene you just read did NOT happen in Adnan Turani’s life.
This is an attempt to capture the feeling I had when looking at his artworks. Feeling of someone slipping away. I have the facts of his life; I’ve seen photos and videos of him and still I can’t tell who he was. Or who she was – the feminine figure he painted throughout the years up to his death.
But we need to start from the very beginning.
Adnan Turani was born in Istanbul in 1925.1 In his twenties he studied to be a painting teacher. After finishing the Painting and Crafts Department of Ankara Gazi Education Institute he taught in primary schools. Looking at kids’ drawings, helping and inspiring them for about five years – he himself grew as a young artist. Then he received a scholarship. Having switched teaching to studying he arrived in Germany. He developed his art practice there with the help of Franz Nagel at the Munich Academy of Fine Arts, Willi Baumeister at the Stuttgart Academy of Fine Arts, and Heinz Trökes at the Hamburg School of Fine Arts.
After finishing his studies, Turani comes back and starts teaching again. But this time not to first-graders, but as a professor in the university he graduated at 20 years ago. Doctorate degree completed, he takes on roles of a professor in two more universities: Hacettepe University and Bilkent University, both in Ankara. Apart from that he continues to publish his theoretical works about art and history. Having debuted as a writer back in 1960 with an article called “Akademisiz Bir Başkent” (A Capital City without an Academy), Turani continued his work publishing in magazines such as “Varlık” (Existence) and “Türk Dil” (Turkish Language). From 1964 to 1966 Turani was printing his own magazine about art called “Sanat ve Sanatçılar” (Art and Artists). One of the students of Turani recalls the words of Remzi İnanç – Turani’s publisher – that the diverse functionality and impact of that magazine, despite its brevity was exceptional. 2
One of the most prominent examples of Turani’s work as a writer was his book “Dünya Sanat Tarihi” (World Art History, İstanbul: Remzi Kitabevi). It was published in 1971 and subsequently got more than 20 republished editions throughout the years, showcasing and combining his professional faculties as a writer, artist and historian.3
The names of all the group and solo exhibitions he participated in during his career – both domestic and international – would be too numerous to mention. But still, here are some: the group exhibition “12 Peintres Etrangers” at Galerie Fröhlich in Bern, 1977, a solo exhibition at Galerie Bremer in West Berlin in 1959, the Triennale India in Delhi in 1971 and the III. International Biennial Exhibition of Prints in Tokyo, Japan in 1962.4 He was also prominent as an art critic, being for example the head of the jury at the International Asian Art Biennale in Bangladesh.5 But even at the end of his life, being an indispensable part of Turkish art history – he continued to paint.
So, what was his art like?
Here I could start analyzing his works, I could start drawing parallels between him and his colleagues at HfbK – how all of his German professors were in one way or another leaning towards abstraction – I can try to link him to Picasso and Matisse, whose vibrancy and viscerality were seamlessly integrated into the context of his works, or to compare the scarcity, movement and lightness of his drawings to Japanese haikus.
But there is something that I won’t be able to compartmentalize.
Who are all these feminine figures he continues to come back to? And maybe it’s not important, maybe it’s just an abstract concept he reiterates – but whenever you look back at any of his works and you see a couple of wavy lines, a couple of vibrant blots – you suddenly realize that you’re looking behind the curtain of someone’s life. These blots carry a love story that you will never know. And you’d be happy not to care. But every time your sight glimpses over any of his drawings – be it a feminine figure playing violin, or feminine figure naked, or feminine figure feeding a child – your gaze is arrested. The abstractness of his art creates a barrier of anonymity – no face, no features, almost no body – just the idea of a person. But simultaneously the drawing invites you in, invites you to guess, invites you to feel it out. Who was that woman? What was the context of their relationship? Was there any? Has she existed? And even if she didn’t, it doesn’t matter – she does now.
And all there is left to do is to guess. Guess her voice, guess her scent, guess her touch.
Adnan Turani lived a life. And it’s ended. But the characters of his paintings live on.
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Her: Don’t come back from Germany.
Adnan: Why?
Her: There is nothing to come back to. It’s all in your mind. Istanbul or Ankara – it’s just a reflection. And me too – just a flash of sunlight. Not really there.