Burhan Doğançay

Burhan C. Doğançay (11 September 1929 – 16 January 2013) was a Turkish-American artist. Doğançay is best known for tracking walls in various cities across the world for half a century, integrating them into his artistic work.

Biography Born in Istanbul, Turkey, Burhan Dogançay obtained his artistic training from his father Adil Doğançay, and Arif Kaptan, both well-known Turkish painters. In his youth, Dogançay played on the Gençlerbirliği football team. In 1950, he received a law degree from the University of Ankara. While enrolled at the University of Paris between 1950 and 1955, from where he obtained a doctorate degree in economics, he attended art courses at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière. During this period he continued to paint regularly and to show his works in several group exhibitions. Soon after his return to Turkey, he participated in many exhibitions, including joint exhibitions with his father at the Ankara Art Lovers Club.

Following a brief career with the government (diplomatic service), which brought him to New York City in 1962, Dogançay decided in 1964 to devote himself entirely to art and to make New York his permanent home. He started searching the streets of New York for inspiration and raw materials for his collage and assemblages. He began to think it was impossible to make a reasonable living as an artist. Thomas M. Messer, director of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum for 27 years, significantly influenced Dogançay, urging him to stay in New York and face the city's challenges.

In the 1970s, Dogançay started traveling for his Walls of the World photographic documentary project. He met his future wife, Angela, at the Hungarian Ball at the Hotel Pierre in New York. In 2006, a painting by Doğançay titled Trojan Horse was gifted by the Turkish government to the OECD in Paris. Dogançay lived and worked during the last eight years of his life alternating between his studios in New York and Turgutreis, Turkey. He died at the age of 83 in January 2013.

Artistic contribution Since the early 1960s, Doğançay had been fascinated by urban walls and chose them as his subject. He considered them the barometer of societies and a testament to the passage of time, reflecting the emotions of a city, frequently withstanding the assault of the elements and the markings left by people. It began, Dogançay said, when something caught his eye during a walk along 86th street in New York:

It was the most beautiful abstract painting I had ever seen. There were the remains of a poster, and a texture to the wall with little bits of shadows coming from within its surface. The color was mostly orange, with a little blue and green and brown. Then, there were the marks made by rain and mud.

As a city traveler, for half a century he mapped and photographed walls in various cities worldwide. In this context, urban walls serve as documents of the respective climate and zeitgeist, as ciphers of social, political and economic change. Part of the intrinsic spirit of his work is to suggest that nothing is ever what it seems. Dogançay's art is wall art, and thus his sources of subjects are real. Therefore, he can hardly be labeled as an abstract artist, and yet at first acquaintance much of his work appears to be abstract. In Dogançay's approach, the serial nature of investigation and the elevation of characteristic elements to form ornamental patterns are essential. Within this, he formulates a consistent continuation of decollagist strategies – effectively the re-contextualised deconstruction of positions related to the nouveau réalistes. Dogançay may have started out as a simple observer and recorder of walls, but he fast made a transition to being able to express a range of ideas, feelings, and emotions in his work. His vision continued to broaden, driven both by content and technique.

Walls of the World

In the mid-1970s, Doğançay embarked on what he thought of as a secondary project: photographing urban walls all over the globe. These photographs – which Dogançay called Walls of the World – are an archive of our time and the seeds for his paintings, which also expressed contemporary times. The focus of his "encyclopedic" approach was exclusively directed toward the structures, signs, symbols and images that humans leave on walls. Here he found the entire range of the human condition in a single motif, without any cultural, racial, political, geographical, or stylistic, limitations. Dogançay got to the heart of his exploration when he said:

Walls are the mirror of society.

Doğançay's consequential execution, his radical thematic self-limitation and obsession with capturing what interested him most is comparable to other "documentarians" such as August Sander (portraits) and Karl Blossfeldt (plants). His pictures are not snapshots but elaborate segmentations of surfaces, subtle studies of materials, colors, structures and light, sometimes resembling monochromies in their radical reductionism. Over time, this project gained importance as well as content; after four decades it encompasses about 30'000 images from more than 100 countries across five continents. In 1982, images from the archive were exhibited as a one-man exhibition at the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; it later traveled to the Palais des Beaux-Arts, Brussels, and the Musée d'Art Contemporain, Montreal.

Painting and collage

With posters and objects gathered from walls forming the main ingredient for his work, Dogançay's preferred medium has been predominantly 'collage' and to some extent 'fumage'. Dogançay re-creates the look of urban billboards, graffiti-covered wall surfaces, as well as broken or neglected entrances, such as windows and doors, in different series. The only masters with whom he compares himself are Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns from the last heroic period of art, of which he was a part. Doğançay, however, has always preferred to reproduce fragments of wall surface in their mutual relations just as he found them, and with minimal adjustment of color or position, rather than to up-end them or combine them casually as in the Rauschenberg manner.

In large measure his practice has been one of simulation in the spirit of record-keeping, carried out with the collector's rather than the scavenger's eye. In many cases, his paintings evoke the decay and destruction of the city, the alienated feeling that urban life is in ruins and out of control, and cannot be integrated again. Pictorial fragments are often detached from their original context and rearranged in new, sometimes inscrutable combinations. His complex and uniformly experimental painterly oeuvre ranges from photographic realism to abstraction, from pop art to material image/montage/collage.

In the 1970s and 1980s, he gained fame with his interpretation of urban walls in his signature ribbons series, which consist of clean paper strips and their calligraphy-like shadows. These contrast with his collaged billboard works, such as the Cones Series, Doors Series or Alexander's Walls. These brightly intense, curvilinear ribbon forms seem to burst forth from flat, solid-colored backgrounds. The graceful ribbonlike shapes take on a three-dimensional quality, especially as suggested by the implied shadows. This series later gave rise to alucobond–aluminum composite shadow sculptures and the series known as Aubusson Tapestries.

Tamarind lithography

In 1969, Henry Geldzahler, then head of 20th Century Art Department at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, secured a fellowship for Doğançay at the Tamarind Lithography Workshop in Los Angeles. The workshop, founded by June Wayne, was a ten-year project, attended by approximately seventy artists – among them were Ed Ruscha, Jim Dine, Josef Albers and Louise Nevelson – between 1960 and 1970, conceived to promote lithography in the USA. Doğançay created sixteen lithographs, including a suite of eleven impressions titled Walls V. These marked a turning point in his career as they are essentially a dialogue with flatness. At the workshop, in part because of the medium, he was obliged to relinquish his casual approach, inspired by his raw subject matter, in favor of organizing his work graphically. This imposed discipline helped him to create arresting new effects that led to more defined flat areas and brighter colors within the images. Doğançay created a new resolution between subject and method, and was a profound influence on his future evolution as an artist. A canon of high-colored tonality and visual impact has remained for him the essence of urban contradiction which he wants to share with viewers of his works.

Aubusson Tapestry

In Paris, Doğançay was introduced to Jean-François Picaud, owner of L'Atelier Raymond Picaud in Aubusson, France. Fascinated by Dogançay's Ribbons series and believing they would be ideal tapestry subjects, he invited Dogançay to submit several tapestry cartoons. In the words of Jean-François Picaud, "the art of tapestry has found its leader for the 21st century in Burhan Dogançay". Istanbul Modern commissioned composer Kamran Ince to set Mavi Senfoni to music. The solo piano piece was premiered by Huseyin Sermet on 26 June 2012.

In May 2015, Doğançay's painting Mavi Güzel (Blue Beauty) from the Ribbon Series sold for TL 1,050,000 (US$390’000) at Antik AS in Istanbul

Doğançay Museum The Doğançay Museum is exclusively dedicated to the work of Burhan Doğançay, and to a minor extent also to the art of his father, Adil. It provides a retrospective survey of the artist's various creative phases from his student days up to his death, with about 100 works on display. Established in 2004, the Doğançay Museum in Istanbul's Beyoğlu district is being considered to be Turkey's first contemporary art museum. The Israel Museum in Jerusalem and The State Russian Museum in St. Petersburg.

Works in public collections (selection)

1964: Billboard, New York, The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum 1964: Yankees and Beatles, London, Tate Modern 1965: Eddie, Vienna, Albertina 1966: Peace of Mind, Mannheim, Kunsthalle 1966: Diner's Window, Dallas, Dallas Museum of Art 1966: J. Payn Window, Minneapolis, Walker Art Center 1969: New York Puzzle, Stuttgart, Staatsgalerie 1969: untitled, Washington, National Gallery of Art 1969: Walls V, New York, MoMA 1969: untitled, Cambridge/MA, Harvard Art Museums 1974: Red and Black Composition No. 5, New York, The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum 1975: White Cone & Shadow, Basel, Kunstmuseum 1977: Heart No. 26, Saint-Paul de Vence, Fondation Maeght 1979: Lofty Ribbons, London, British Museum 1980s: Whispering Wall III, London, V&A Museum 1980s: #150, Vienna, MAK 1980: Long Lost Ribbons, Vienna, mumok stiftung ludwig 1980: untitled, Bruxelles, Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium 1982: Ribbon Mania, New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art 1987: Magnificent Era, Istanbul, Istanbul Modern 1987: Symphony in Blue, Istanbul, Yildiz Holding (Murat Ülker) 1989: Kinder, Hannover, Sprengel Museum 1989: Neruda, Stockholm, Moderna Museet 1989: Versace Man, Los Angeles, Los Angeles County Museum 1992: I Am Really Old, Salzburg, Museum oder Moderne 1995: Tit Steaks, Ann Arbor/MI, University of Michigan Museum of Art 1997: Garden of Eden, Munich, Pinakothek der Moderne 1997: Push Love, Saint Louis, Saint Louis Art Museum 1998: Two Fine Red Lines, Vienna, Albertina 2002: Red Ada, Geneva, Musée d'art et d'histoire (MAH) 2002: Throw FD, Pittsburgh, Carnegie Museum of Art 2008: Peace Partners, Cleveland, Cleveland Museum of Art 2009: Rising Star, Boston, Museum of Fine Arts Boston 2011: The Days of the Fez, Vienna, Albertina

Awards 2005 – Contribution to the Arts Award given by the International Contemporary Art Exposition, İstanbul 2005 – Art Honor Award given by the Art Forum Plastic Arts Fair, Ankara 2004 – Honorary doctorate from Hacettepe University, Ankara 2004 – Painter of the Year Award given by Sanat Kurumu, Ankara 1995 – National Medal for the Arts for Lifetime Achievement & Cultural Contribution given by the President of the Republic of Turkey 1992 – Medal of Appreciation given by the Ministry of Culture of Russia 1984 – Enka Arts & Science Award, İstanbul 1969 – Tamarind Lithography Workshop Fellowship, Los Angeles 1964 – Certificate of Appreciation by the City of New York

Exhibitions

Solo exhibitions (selection) 1976: Istanbul: Galeri Baraz. Burhan Dogançay 1977: Zurich: Kunstsalon Wolfsberg. Acrylmalereien und Gouachen 1966–1976 1982: Paris: Centre Georges Pompidou. Les murs murmurent, ils crient, ils chantent ... 1983: Montreal: Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal 1983: Antwerp: International Cultural Center 1989: Tokyo: The Seibu Museum of Art–Yurakucho Art Forum. Dogançay 1992: St. Petersburg: Russian Museum. Walls and Doors 1990–91 1993: Istanbul: Atatürk Cultural Center. Walls 1990–93 (Organized by Yahşi Baraz) 2000: New York: The Brooklyn Historical Society. Bridge of Dreams. 2001: Istanbul: Dolmabahçe Cultural Center. Dogançay: A Retrospective (Organized by Dr. Nejat F. Eczacıbaşı Foundation) 2001: Athens, Ohio: Kennedy Museum of Art–Ohio University. Dogançay–Wall Paintings from the Museum Collection 2003: Siegen: Siegerlandmuseum. Walls of the World 2012: Istanbul: Istanbul Modern. Fifty Years of Urban Walls: A Burhan Dogancay Retrospective 2014: Istanbul: Dogançay Museum. Picture the World: Burhan Dogançay as Photographer 2016: Ankara: CER Modern. Picture the World: Burhan Dogançay as Photographer 2016: Essen: Museum Folkwang. New to the collection: Burhan Dogancay 2016: Taipei: Taiwan National Museum of History. Picture the World: Burhan Dogançay as Photographer 2017: Vienna: Albertina. Burhan Dogançay (works on paper) 2018: Leverkusen: Museum Morsbroich. Zeichen an der Wand

Group exhibitions (selection) 1972: New York: Pace Gallery. Printmakers at Pace 1977: New York: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. From the American Collection 1983: Washington: National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution 1987: Istanbul: 1st International Istanbul Biennial 1999: New York: The Museum of the City of New York, The New York Century: World Capital, Home Town, 1900–2000 2006: Fredonia, N.Y.: Rockefeller Arts Center Art Gallery. Connoisseurship 2009: Salzburg: Museum der Moderne. SPOTLIGHT 2009: Biel/Bienne: CentrePasquArt. Collage–Décollage: Dogançay–Villeglé 2009: Berlin: Martin-Gropius-Bau. Istanbul Next Wave 2010: London: British Museum. Modern Turkish Art at the British Museum 2010: Minneapolis, MN: Walker Art Center, Perlman Gallery. 50/50: Audience and Experts Curate the Paper Collection 2012: Vienna: Belvedere, Orangerie. Kokoschka sucht einen Rahmen 2012: Maastricht: Bonnefantenmuseum. Different Impressions, Changing Traditions 2013: Boston: Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Uncontainable Portraits 2013: Doha: Bahrain National Museum. Istanbul Modern-Bahrain 2013: Grenoble: Musée de Grenoble-Bibliothèque Teisseire-Malherbe. Les Mots dans l'Art 2013: Zurich: Museum Haus Konstruktiv. Hotspot Istanbul 2013: Minneapolis: Weisman Art Museum. Reviewing The Real 2013: New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Fifty Years of Collecting Islamic Art 2014: Boston: Museum of Fine Arts. National Pride (and Prejudice) 2015: Stockholm: Moderna Museet. A Larger World 2015: Leverkusen: Museum Morsbroich. Eddie Murphy und die Milk-Brothers 2016: Los Angeles: LACMA. Islamic Art Now, Part 2 2016: Istanbul: Elgiz Museum. Faces & Masks 2016: Purchase/NY: Neuberger Museum of Art. Post No Bills: Public Walls as Studio and Source 2017: Minneapolis: Weisman Art Museum. Prince from Minneapolis 2017: Wolfsburg: Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg. Im Käfig der Freiheit 2017: Saint-Paul-de-Vence: Fondation Maeght. Is this how men live? 2018: Ankara: Evliyagil Museum. Icons of Thinking: Images and Texts 2019: Vienna: Albertina. Warhol to Richter 2019: Istanbul: Istanbul Modern. The Event of a Thread: Global Narratives in Textiles 2019: Wolfsburg: Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg. Now is the Time 2019: Geneva: MAMCO Musée d'art moderne et contemporain. Collection(s) 2020: London: Tate Modern. Materials and Objects: Collage 2021: London: British Museum. Reflections: Contemporary Art of the Middle East and North Africa 2021: Zurich: Museum Haus Konstruktiv. Works on Paper from the Collection 2021: Ann Arbor/MI: University of Michigan Museum of Art. You Are Here