images | text

Özlem Günyol & Mustafa Kunt
Born in 1977 in Ankara, Turkey; born in 1978 in Ankara, Turkey / They live in Frankfurt, Germany

Jens Hoffmann (JH): Tell me how you started collaborating.

Özlem Günyol & Mustafa Kunt (ÖG & MK): In the beginning, we talked with each other about our individual projects. In time, these talks turned into discussions. Then in 2003, we were invited as individual artists to do a work at a gallery in Frankfurt. We were talking about the space, its conditions, the meaning of our presence in that space, and so on, and that talk turned into a project. In the following two years we worked individually. Then in 2005, there was the Academy Remix project between The Exit in Kosovo and the Städelschule in Frankfurt. During this project we had intensive discussions and made two new collaborative works. In the same year we also made a video work, which reflected our situation as a couple and as artists. So, over time we started to discuss each other’s projects during the production process, and even before. After a while it was not clear anymore whose idea or solution was whose. We were already working together. It happened very naturally.

JH: Tell me a little bit about your education. What and where did you study?

ÖG: We both studied sculpture in Ankara, at Hacettepe University. At that time it was a very classical school, and just before finishing we started to look for other schools. Then we found Städelschule in Frankfurt. I studied interdisciplinary art with Ayşe Erkmen and Mustafa studied free art with Wolfgang Tillmans. In the meantime, Mustafa also studied sculpture with Ansgar Nierhoff at Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz, Germany, but he didn’t finish that school.

JH: What are your thoughts around the piece Ceaseless Doodle (2009)?

ÖG & MK: There is a sense of black humor in this work. To make it, we printed the borderlines of all the countries in the world on A4-size pieces of paper, thus equalizing the territorial size of small countries such as Luxembourg with large countries such as Canada or China. These images were drawn on transparent papers, scanned into a computer, then projected and traced onto a wall, superimposed on one another. The effect is of an intricately interwoven orb of the world—a seemingly aimless “globe” scribble that is actually composed of precisely drawn borderlines. It is a part of a trilogy: Flag-s, Ceaseless Doodle, and Hullabaloo. This trilogy includes all the national flags (Flag-s), all the national borders (Ceaseless Doodle), and all the national anthems (Hullabaloo) in the world. Although the medium of each work is different—inkjet print, drawing, and multimedia sound installation—similar methods were used in their production processes. In these three works, we reduce the meanings of national flags, borderlines, and anthems to the point of nothingness by presenting all of them at the same time.