SUGAR CHANDELIER

The memoirs of a chandelier: what would they be like? Moving pictures of events once reflected in bulbs or prisms. A bird's-eye tale of domination and submission, chance and design. A chronicle of buyers and sellers and holders. Successful epic need more than a touch of Time and Place.

And the story of the contemporary chocolatiere? A morality tale for the belly and the bowels. A paradox of pain at work and pleasure in its resolution. A didactic confection of the delights and dangers of bitterness. Hardboiled novels need more than a hint of Cause and Effect.

Juggling the heavy weight of these four contrasts, the author of the Sugar Chandelier and the Bitter Chocolate Love will be excused for short-circuiting art and life. She re-hangs her occidental everyday in eternal Constantinople. Her method is the sensual archive. Within certain boundaries, of course. No cardamon coffee. No apple tea. No Turkish delight.

Ebru Özseçen applies herself to art. She crafts a high degree of artfulness, putting everything at stake and making us follow her all the way through. We sense the truth ling in her path. Honor to those who find it through determination and by distrusting their knowledge of Place, Cause and Effect (Time is another matter). Shorter circuits make you run faster. Shortcuts may lead you astray. Ebru is aware. She is drawn to perfection-and to drawing. This medium knows no boundaries and no shortening of perspectives.

Sweet and Bitter are the files that she opens here. Lingua Franca is her language of choice. Her work tastes of sugar and salt: The groceries of everywhere. The two, dissolved in lukewarm water, are used to revive those who are starving back to life. A primeval engine for us humans and nobody's national dish.

published in 6th International Istanbul Biennial "Passion and Wave" (catalogue)
curated by Paolo Colombo
(both in English and in Turkish)
–on Ebru Özseçen's work "Sugar Chandelier" by Anders Kreuger.
September 17.30.1999- October.30.1999 in St.Irene, Istanbul.
© Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts,1999
ISBN 975-7363-13-8