caner teker
caner teker makes art to exist in the moment, whenever that might be.
All too often an artist will not save their work, instead scattering their creations to the wind, allowing time to erode the essence of that art. This is a pervasive problem for many artists working with performance, movement, and time based media. This is no problem for caner teker. They ensure that their artwork exists at all times in such a way that one might look back without fear of misrepresentation, or careless decontextualization. Their work is queer, anarchist, astonishingly compassionate and dynamic. By addressing the question of how one might see into the future, teker can begin to archive a moment of movement. By striving to capture the intangible through laborious, careful and ultimately loving caresses, teker allows these moments to manifest as words, design, printed ephemera and skillfully refined artifacts. Burning away the shiny, foamy scum that cocoons artworks from future criticism, the artist begins to transcend time - not through their work, but for their work.
Exploring identity and erotica, caner teker infuses movement with history; dissolving homogeneity, offering agency, insisting for solidarity.
Despite a rigorous grounding in theory, teker’s artwork is physical and beautiful. The artist takes the stance that documentary photography cannot capture the reality of performance, perhaps since movement can only be glimpsed in two dimensions, capturing coolly with no indication of breath, or warmth. Even without photos, the sheer breadth of teker’s work can be appreciated through the diversity of media employed. caner teker offers us the monolithic yet playfully designed large format print Shame Manifesto (2021) that sharply defends positions of ‘us’ and ‘them’ through a verbal exchange. The sculptural archive Resonating Bodies (2022) blends craft, set design and found objects to imply the demanding physicality of stripping. Scent and touch and sweat are tangible artifacts of a recent performance (KIRKPINAR, 2020), the offerings cast off by delicately oiled wrestlers, a tender nod towards an energy long since dissipated, but containing the promise of renewal. The tension that teker employs to divide the ‘moment’ from the future is almost a conversation, threads that link without defining an edge, and creating art that is internal rather than sheer surface - encompassing, rather than othering. However, their work is not easy. At every step we are asked to consider if there is more at stake than we first think, each moment is so carefully crafted, even in their boldness teker asks us to tread lightly.
My work translates as in being queer, anti-capitalist, intersectional, transformative, accountable and parasitic.
Biography caner teker
born in 1994 in Duisburg, Germany
Education
2022 danceWEB Scholarship program, Impulstanz Vienna, Austria
2019-2022 Choreography, SNDO - School for New Dance Development, Amsterdam, Netherlands
2013-2019 Visual Arts at Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, Germany (Prof. Trisha Donelly, Johannes Paul Raether, John Morgan; Meisterschülerin)
Exhibitions/Performances
2022
‚Sound of Garden‘, Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin
KIRKPINAR, Tanzquartier Wien, Österreich
‚Age of Self‘, Gruppenausstellung, Galerie Max Mayer, Düsseldorf
‚tools for anarchiving‘, Bärenzwinger, Berlin
‚Echoes — A Live Exhibition‘ Haus der Kunst, München
2021
Berlin Atonal x Julia Stoschek Collection, Metabolic Rift, KIRKPINAR
'karadeniz' 2020 in Ko-produktion tanzhaus nrw and HAU - Hebbel am
Ufer, Berlin
Haus Wien, Gruppenausstellung, Shame Manifesto, Wien, Österreich
"A FIRE IN MY BELLY" - Julia Stoschek Collection, Berlin
Residencies/grants/scholarships
2023
Kunststiftung NRW, Residency in Galata, Istanbul, Turkey
2022
DIS-TANZ Solo
danceWEB Stipendium, Impulstanz Wien
Tanja Liedtke Stipendium
2021
Atelier Panormos, Residenz, Palermo Goethe Institut / Kultur Ensemble Take Care
Residenz, HAU - Hebbel am Ufer, Berlin & tanzhaus nrw Initial
Stipendium, Akademie der Künste
2020
Förderpreis der Stadt Düsseldorf
Guest-Fellowship, PACT Zollverein, Essen
"Auf gehts" - Stipendium, Ministerium für Kunst und Wissenschaft, NRW Stipendium Norbert Janssen Stiftung
2019
Stipendium Norbert Janssen Stiftung
Stipendium für Residenz am tanzhaus nrw von Kunst- und Kulturstiftung Sparkasse Düsseldorf
Works by caner teker
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Resonating Bodies
2022 / Pole, hazer, shoes, light / Dimensions variable
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Shame Manifesto
2021 / Digital print / 59.4 x 42 cm / 23.4 x 16.5 in
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Resonating Bodies
2020 / Red high heels / Dimensions variable
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Resonating Bodies
2022 / Service / Dimensions variable
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KIRKPINAR
2020 / Traces of the Performance (Leather Trousers, Oil, Metal Cans) / Dimensions variable