Ahmet Öğüt

Hitchhiking General
2008
Documentation of a performance, performed by Olof Olsson.
C-print photos, 35 x 50 cm each, drawing, sketches.

Hitchhiking General was performed by one of the Malmö Konsthall members in June 2008 during two days. He was wearing a standard suit of a Swedish general and he was hitchhiking with two “car flags” in his hands. Whenever someone stopped to take him, he suggested to locate those small flags in the front of the car just like flags on “official” cars. Flags would remain there until the General got off the car. Hitchhiking General is an absurd metaphor in terms of power structure. This absurd situation displaces the position of power and demands participation. In a General’s costume, the hitchhiker is no longer just a stranger who needs to be transported from one place to another – he becomes a strategic symbol that is hard to refuse or ignore by people passing by.

Devrim (Revolution)
2005 – first edition
wall drawing and vinyl letters on the wall

In Devrim, Ahmet Öğüt makes a wall drawing from a small picture of the Devrim / Revolution car that was originally produced in Turkey in 1961 in the era of Turkish modernization. The drawing is accompanied by a text on the wall that explains how the first car produced in Turkey was named Devrim (Revolution) and was made by the order of the president of the Turkish Republic and taken to Ankara for him to test drive. However, as the engineers forgot to fill the tank with petrol, the car stopped after only going for 20 feet. The artist plays with the anecdote, referring to the new nostalgia for the period of Turkish modernization that represents an ongoing invention. In a political constellation in which Kemalist Turks cannot locate modernity neither in the present or future of Turkey nor in the present of Europe, it is being sought in the party regime of the early republic as a specific form of non-Western modernity.

Ahmet Öğüt (1981, Diyarbakir, TR) graduated from Hacettepe University, Fine Art Faculty, Painting Department and received an MA from Yildiz Teknik University, Art and Design Faculty, Istanbul. He has participated at the residency program at Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten, Amsterdam 2007-2008. Ögüt has exhibited widely, including 7th SITE Santa Fe Biennial, New Mexico; 5th Berlin Biennial for Contemporary Art; Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven; Ashkal Alwan, Beirut; Apexart, New York; 9th International Istanbul Biennial; 1st Contemporary Art Biennale of Thessaloniki; Galerija Miroslav Kraljević, Zagreb; Kunsthalle Exnergasse, Wien; Platform Garanti Contemporary Art Center, Istanbul; Rooseum Center for Contemporary Art, Malmö; The Museum of Modern Art of Ljubljana; Museum of Contemporary Art, Belgrade; Tennis Palace Art Museum, Helsinki; Sparwasser HQ, Berlin and Proje4L Istanbul Contemporary Art Museum. His artist book On The Road to Other Lands was published by A Prior Magazine in collaboration with 5th Berlin Biennial and Today in History was published by Book Works and Platform Garanti Contemporary Art Center, Istanbul. Ögüt’s work has been widely written about in magazines such as Art in America, Art Papers, Art-ist Magazine, Frieze, Spike Art Quarterly, Bidoun, Art Asia Pasific etc. He is based in Amsterdam.