Rey Akdogan creates subtle interventions into the spatial, temporal, and material conditions of a given environment through an understated use of repurposed industrial and display materials.
Recent works have employed—in a manner contrary to their intended use—materials from stage design, commercial photography, and industrial manufacturing: theatrical lighting gels, packing material, cinefoil, neutral density filters, PVC curtains, and fluorescent rods, among others. United by their literal and figurative capacity to filter, these materials are conventionally put toward utilitarian ends that seek to render them invisible through the act of use—they are seen through rather than looked at. However, in the case of Akdogan’s work, they simultaneously gesture toward the industrial context from which they came as well as the space in which they are exhibited.
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Past
Rey Akdogan (b. 1974, Heilbronn, Germany) completed the Whitney Independent Study Program in 2004 after receiving her MA from Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, London in 2001. Recent solo exhibitions dedicated to her work include Lost Record, Commercial Street, Los Angeles (2022), Subtractions, Galerie Anke Schmidt, Cologne (2021), Rey Akdogan, Hannah Hoffman, Los Angeles (2017), Faction, Miguel Abreu Gallery, New York (2017), Rey Akdogan, Radio Athènes, Athens (2016), Crash Rail, Miguel Abreu Gallery (2015), Rey Akdogan, Hannah Hoffman (2014), night curtain, Miguel Abreu Gallery (2012), off set, MoMA PS1, New York (2012), and Silent Partner, Andrew Roth Gallery, New York (2012). She was included in the XIV Bienal de Cuenca in 2018, as well as in group shows at Dia:Beacon, Real Fine Arts, Venetia Kapernekas Gallery, Simone Subal Gallery, Elisabeth Ivers Gallery (all in New York), Galerie Anke Schmidt (Cologne), Galerie Max Mayer (Düsseldorf), FraenkelLAB (San Francisco), Galerie Balice Hertling (Paris), Galerie Tatjana Pieters (Ghent), and Rodeo Gallery (Istanbul), among others. #46, a book of the artist’s work, was published by PPP Editions in 2012.
Akdogan’s fourth solo exhibition, Subtractions, with Miguel Abreu Gallery was on view March 31 – May 7, 2023. Published by Minerva Projects, Akdogan’s Plant Light Curtain, a limited edition artist book, was launched in the spring of 2023.
Publications
