RCA Society

Güler Ateş - "No Past Is Mine..."

No Past Is Mine, No Future: Look at Me
An exhibition and installation by Güler Ateş
1- 26 September - Leighton House, Kensington.

Lord Frederic Leighton's former home and studio is an example of Victorian opulence, fashionable exoticism, and the industrial dynamic of 19th Century trading. It is a reminder of the British Empire's ability to absorb outside influences, manufacture them as its own, then export and capitalise upon them world-wide. An environment which underlines a history of universal hegemony and cultural hybrids.

Güler Ateş' s installation and exhibition located in Leighton House draws a number of parallels to these cultural hybrids and weaves them through an environment of deceptions.

Leighton House, with its plain, non-descript factory-like exterior reminiscent of municipal utilitarian buildings hides an extraordinary interior that is visually more akin to the atmospheric fantasy of Finsbury Park Astoria cinema, though it is not plaster, smoke and mirrors. The interior walls of the maze of rooms in Leighton House are dominated by De Morgan tiles that are difficult to distinguish from the imported 'genuine articles' of Turkey, Iran, Syria and Egypt, again enhancing deception and extraction. De Morgan was often criticised for being a copyist rather than an originator. The house which is visually overpowering physically dominates and takes over Gulay's installation: No Past Is Mine, No Future: Look at Me. But this should be read as a strength of the installation.

The exhibition draws inspiration from part 1 of a story by Naquib Mahfouz (an Egyptian writer of Nobel Prize status) in his Cairo Trilogy, which tells of a solitary woman's attendance to her absent husband. The woman's presence permeates through the house either static as photographic evidence or as ghostly manifestations moving repetitively through the small still frame of a TV monitor or imposing cinematic projection in the darkness onto a wall. The veiled figure of the woman, the central character in this manifestation, is obscured by 'coverings', to either enhance her situation, her privacy, her modesty, her non-identity, her 'ghostliness', or are simply a vehicle which abstracts shape, colour and slow movement of time passing. There are a number of 'tableaux' - red, blue and brocaded echoing the ornateness and orientalism of Leighton House, the old traditions of the orient (middle east), and, in the company of peacocks, issues of vanity, modesty and self gratification.

A further reference could be drawn from the location of Leighton House close to Kensington Gardens and its Palace which famously housed an abandoned princess who reputedly walked alone through opulent rooms and corridors accompanied only by the sound of screaming peacocks to penetrate her silence.

"No Past Is Mine, No Future: Look at Me" is the first exhibition and installation at Leighton House since its refurbishment project was completed. All the works were created by Güler Ateş during her five month residency at the house. Güler graduated from the Royal College of Art in 2009 and is currently a fellow in printmaking at the Royal Academy. Lord Leighton, was also an RA and in 1878 President of the Royal Academy.

It was a wonderful occasion for RCA Society members to meet at the Private view where we not only had a chance to view the work and the house but also met up with a other guests and signed up some new members. The Museum staff were friendly and welcoming, generously providing guests with wine and refreshments.

Leighton House is a great place to visit - hidden out of view of Kensington High Street, it's exotic interiors never cease to surprise.
For more information see: http://www.rbkc.gov.uk/subsites/museums.aspx