Sarkis: 100 - Munch'tan Sonra | After Munch

100 - Munch’tan Sonra | After Munch accompanies Sarkis’ exhibition 85 Screams: After Munch held at Dirimart Dolapdere in 2023. Marking the artist’s 85th birthday, the book features photographic reproductions of 100 oil-on-paper works created between November 2014 and January 2015. Titled 100 Screams: After Munch, this powerful series draws inspiration from the iconic figure in Edvard Munch’s The Scream, an image that has haunted Sarkis since childhood and echoed throughout his oeuvre. Eschewing brushes, the artist applies white and red oil paints directly from the tube to paper, capturing the raw immediacy and velocity of a scream. Produced shortly after the works were made, the photographic reproduction by the artist emphasise their shifting presence over time and across geographies. Spanning the years from Sarkis’ birth in 1938 to the present and beyond, this autobiographical publication offers a visceral reflection on artistic memory, trauma, and transformation through one of modern art’s most enduring motifs.Text in English and Turkish.

Starting his journey with painting, Sarkis expanded his interest to include sculpture and audiovisual installations. He uses a variety of techniques and material from photography, video, to painting, sculpture, stained glass, and neon lights. In his hand, a neon sign may take the shape of letters, sometimes a poem or a watchword, in other cases an angel or just its wings. He combines the intellectual tradition of Western and Eastern cultures which have been historically excluded, addressing issues of time, memory, and identity. Many of his works refer to a dramatic moment in the history of humankind such as war. Kriegsschatz is a key concept in his art, a German term referring to war spoils; as an act of irony, he de-contextualises and gives new meanings to objects such as a cut hand or a bullet: Those objects are transformed to reflect memory opening to future and related feeling of triumph, suffering, and perhaps shame. Sarkis is awarded the 1967 Prix de la Peinture à la Biennale de Paris and the 1991 Grand Prix National de Sculpture.