Betül Aksu’s first solo exhibition titled hold, place, transfer ↵ repeat opens at Material in Zürich between February 29 - March 6, 2024. Curated by Marea Hildebrand from The School of Commons, the exhibition brings together two series of works on paper accompanied by an installation that displays the artist’s printmaking materials.

Betül Aksu’s works in printmaking play with the notions of uniqueness, repetition and mistakes. Her monotype series titled Unnamed rectangles use standard metal plates to print images of overlapping rectangles that are random in size. In this work, the artist explores what is considered unique in the wide spectrum of printmaking practices. She prints on the same archival paper over and over again by applying the ink on a metal plate and transferring it onto paper until the ink no longer prints. In this repetitive printing process, the artist holds the metal plate, places it on the paper and transfers the ink without fixing the mistakes.

While working on Unnamed rectangles, the artist uses newsprint papers to protect the printing bed and unprinted areas of the archival paper. These low-cost and non-archival papers pick up the ink residue and the engraving of the rectangular plate, creating images in between the unique prints and their ghost images. These randomly engraved painting series titled image break accompany the unique prints, building a tension around image uniqueness. The storefront of the gallery space displays the installation titled Studio on the go. The work welcomes passersby to witness the printmaking materials the artist has used in her workspaces in Izmir, Istanbul and London.


Die Künstlerin Betül Aksu lädt Kunstliebhaber und Medienvertreter herzlich zur Eröffnung ihrer ersten Einzelausstellung mit dem Titel "hold, place, transfer ↵ repeat" bei Material in Zürich ein. Die Ausstellung, kuratiert von Marea Hildebrand, Direktorin und Gründerin der School of Commons (ZHdK), findet vom 29. Februar bis zum 6. März 2024 statt.

Die Ausstellung präsentiert zwei fesselnde Serien von Papierarbeiten von Betül Aksu, begleitet von einer Installation, die das Druckmaterial der Künstlerin in den Fokus rückt. Aksus Druckwerke spielen kunstvoll mit den Begriffen Einzigartigkeit, Wiederholung und Fehler. In der Serie "Unnamed rectangles" verwendet sie Standard-Metallplatten, um Bilder von sich überlappenden Rechtecken zu drucken, deren Grösse zufällig ist. Dabei erforscht die Künstlerin das Spektrum der Drucktechniken und betont das Einzigartige inmitten der Wiederholung und möglicher Fehler. Die begleitende Serie "image break" nutzt Zeitungspapier, um das Druckbett zu schützen und erzeugt faszinierende Bilder zwischen den Unikaten und ihren "ghost images" (Geistbildern).

Die Installation "Studio on the go" in der Schaufensterfront der Galerie (MATERIAL) gewährt den Passanten einen Einblick in die Materialien, die Aksu in ihren Arbeitsräumen in Izmir, Istanbul und London verwendet hat. Die Ausstellung läuft vom 29. Februar bis zum 6. März 2024, mit der Vernissage am Donnerstag, den 29. Februar 2024, um 18:00 Uhr.

2015 yılında Londra’ya taşındıktan kısa bir süre sonra adresime gelen zarflarda bir tuhaflık fark etmeye başladım. Zarfların üzerindeki posta etiketlerinde ismimdeki ü harfi sürekli yanlış yazılıyordu. Kendi içinde farklılıklar gösteren bir yanlıştı bu, teknolojik bir hata. Kimi zaman ü harfinin yerini bir boşluk alıyordu, kimi zaman ters çevrilmiş bir soru işareti, kimi zamansa sesletilemeyen bir karakter. Önceleri masum bir yazım hatası olduğunu düşündüğüm bu durumla sıklıkla karşılaştıkça hatanın sıradanlığı dikkatimi çekmeye başladı. Bir karakter kodlama hatasıydı bu. Varsayılan sistemden başka bir sisteme çevrilen karakter dizisi hatası. Varsayılanların uyuşmazlığından kaynaklanan, varsayılana ait olan ile ait olmayan arasına keskin sınırlar çizen bir hatalar bütünü. ü harfine övgü enstalasyonu bu hataların bir envanterini oluşturur ve varsayılan sistemleri genişletebilecek bir kod önerisinde bulunur.

Shortly after moving to London in 2015, I started to notice something strange in the envelopes I received at my address. The letter ü in my name was constantly misspelled on the mailing labels. This was an error that had its own differences, a technological error. Sometimes the letter ü was replaced by a space, sometimes by an inverted question mark, and sometimes by an unpronounceable character. As I frequently encountered this situation, which I initially thought was an innocent typo, the banality of the error began to attract my attention. This was a character encoding error. String error that occurs while translating from the default system to another system. A set of errors arising from the incompatibility of defaults, drawing sharp boundaries between what belongs to the default and what does not. The installation an ode to the letter ü creates an inventory of these errors and proposes code that can extend the default systems.

2450 TL, 2022 yılında Türkiye’de yer aldığım 4 karma sergiden kazandığım sanatçı ücreti. 2450 İsviçre Frangı (CHF), yağlıboya tablonun satış fiyatı.

2450 TL (122 EUR), the artist fee I earned from the 4 group exhibitions I participated in Turkey in 2022. 2450 Swiss Francs (CHF), the price of the oil painting.