Tactics of Invisibility offers a visual and textual introduction to the work of the participating artists, as well as a wider discussion on the aesthetic and political implications of visibility and invisibility within the socio-political context of Turkey and its diasporas. It proposes a slightly provocative take on the regime of the visible in the contemporary condition, in which visibility seems no longer to be a means of emancipation but rather the precondition of a society of control and mediated conformism. The temporary suspension of the representational thus allows to focus on that which is not visible and on the underlying mechanisms within today’s political ecologies. The publication provides interviews and texts by the artists, as well as a theoretical framing for what might be called an aesthetics of invisibility: It discusses invisibility as absence, as being “under the surface”, as a tool of withdrawal, refusal and resistance thus focusing on the potentialities of invisibility rather than on the exclusions from the regime of the visible.

Even though the artistic practices of İnci Eviner, Kutluğ Ataman, and Hale Tenger have been nourished within this energetic and vibrant context, their work addresses these questions in very specific ways. The exhibition follows this line of postconceptual or minimalist artistic practice, juxtaposing it with the recent production of the younger generation, represented by Cevdet Erek, Ali Kazma, Esra Ersen, Nilbar Güreş, Nasan Tur, Nevin Aladağ, Ahmet Öğüt, xurban_collective, and the artist initiative Hafriyat.