The Escape from the SerailExhibition and Performance
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the world, including the Versailles and the one in Fatehpur Sikri with many others. The artist also references the deep-rooted history of Sarajevo and its architectural structures. By referring to the word “sarail” he also refers to the name and memories of Sarajevo, which became the “Olympic City” (1984). The figures in Gulan’s paintings seem to be running but we do not know why and where they are running to or where they are running from… Yeliz Celebic’s performance focuses on the embodiment of emotions, in dialogue with Genco Gulan’s concept on the functioning of architectural bodies. Her performance seeks to invoke an emotional response through the arias of the role of Constanze in the opera “Abduction from the Seraglio”. Celebic quotes her as saying; |
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“Traurigkeit ward mir zum Loose, Weil ich dir entrissen bin. Gleich der wurmzernagten Rose, Gleich dem |
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Gras im Wintermoose, Welkt mein banges Leben hin.” “Unhappiness has become my lot. Because I have been torn from you. Like the rose eaten by worms, like the grass that withers in winter. My wretched life is fading away.” (From the libretto penned by Gottlieb Stephanie, based on Christoph Friedrich Bretzner’s libretto) |
Celebic transforms these words into her performance with the soundtrack composed by French sound & audiovisual artist Armand Lesecq by asking the question, “Is it possible to look at the emotions of others?”. By becoming a metaphorical narrative that observes how the feelings are conveyed or carried, this work also seeks a way of remembering – where we reunite with our beloved ones.
To conclude, Genco Gulan and Yeliz Celebic’s art project “The Escape from the Serail (Die Entführung aus dem Serail)” examines the duality arising from the concept of orientalism through the representations of the acts of escape, reunion and centrifugal, aims to go beyond words and images and delve deeper into complex realities.