DANIEL FIRMAN, STAY UP: PILEVNELI | YALIKAVAK

 

 

At a time when we live intertwined with objects that almost stick to our skin, when we use and discard many necessary and unnecessary objects and materials in accordance with consumption strategies and hoard them both at home and in the environment, we allow objects to reconstruct ourselves. Many objects that we own or want to own, want to get rid of or keep, whose meaning and function change over time, have turned into a system of objects in which the hierarchy between subject and object is reversed. Daniel Firman's sculpture series, titled "Gathering," which takes its name from the actions of "collecting" and "accumulating," prompts us to contemplate our changing relationship with objects from the early 2000s to the present, spanning over twenty years. These works, which have been exhibited in many art institutions over time, including the Centre Pompidou, are, in the simplest definition, sculptures in which the lower part of the body appears hyperrealistically, while the upper part is integrated with piles of objects from the face downwards. In Firman's works using the human figure, although the bodies are quite realistic, the faces are never visible. The piles of material accumulated around and above the upper body are not simply collected; the objects are structured, twisted, painted, and combined with the bodies to form hybrid forms resembling plastiglomerates (pieces of rock held together by plastic and considered a sign of the Anthropocene epoch). In addition to plaster for the human body, the materials used in the sculptures are everyday objects such as clothes, shoes, various plastic materials and metal. This emphasizes Firman's concern that the distinction between body and object, human activity and nature is no longer possible, and presents the half-human, half-object figures with a new perception of reality. In the artist's exhibition "An object never comes alone" in Lyon, France in 2022, these sculptures are presented with a similar idea by miniaturizing the human body to emphasize the object. The anonymous figures carrying the burden of these piles of objects on their shoulders have been scaled down, allowing the representation of the human body to submit to the magnitude of accumulated objects, which otherwise could go unnoticed. As a result, the objects are magnified and brought to the forefront. While the human body diminishes, the artist seems to remind us that even the smallest objects are significant beyond their appearance, as they often occupy the most space due to their proliferation, even if they might remain invisible on a city or global scale. The artist usually creates these sculptures with objects collected from various countries such as France, the USA and Iceland. Through these assemblages, the mission of sculpture is to make us redefine and reflect on this mass of things that have no apparent qualities. Each piece has a specific role to play in relation to each other and its own nature; colour, material, texture and architecture invite us to focus on how we perceive and question the details of our environment as a society forced to reinvent and renew itself.

 

The "Gathering" series, of course, has an important place in the artist's visual language that goes from the present to the past. One of the interesting aspects of the series, which has been ongoing since the early 2000s, is that the artist first started these sculptures with a performance. In 1999, Firman gathered objects on his body and then cast them to create a sculpture, making this tangible form a memory of his experience in performance. For the artist, whose sculptures are often the result of a gesture, a process or a performance, the "Gathering" sculptures are related to Rudolf Laban's text on the distinction between two ancient acts, "distributing" and "gathering". Laban, a dance artist, choreographer and dance theorist, is a leading figure in the study of movement analysis, focusing on the two constant gestures (gathering and scattering) that we have been performing since the beginning of time. Gathering is the gesture that comes towards the body and brings the physical environment/object closer to the person, while scattering is the gesture that moves things away from the body - even nowadays causing the accumulation of objects in other environments - and both are linked to breath, to dance, to the body's relationship with its immediate environment. Moreover, the connections these ideas establish with the American gesture-action and the object practice of French New Realism in the history of sculpture of the 1960s and 1970s are also important. The artist has transformed these practices within his mode of production, developed them on an intellectual level and produced his images by concretizing them. In this context, Firman positions the body like a magnet, allowing it to model the world around it, and gathers various tools around it as a continuation of the limbs. As a result, each artwork becomes linked to a specific environment created by the typology of collected and assembled objects, maintaining an element of disorder, even chaos. The artist's transformation of objects, without disconnecting them from their context but reorganizing them through new metaphors, opens up new proposals for advanced transformation and offers insights into our toxic relationship with objects. And this relationship is not unique to humans; hundreds of species including marine animals, birds, and turtles, have become entwined with these objects and even face extinction due to humanity's object infatuation and relentless consumerism, primarily due to plastic and microplastic pollution. Although Firman's sculptures may appear ironic or even playful as he flips their forms, they continue to raise vital questions about existence, objects, the human body, human will, and the greedy habits of the contemporary world.