Tensile Truths: Raw Humanity at the Heart of ‘Electric Mannerism’

Brimming with angst, the bronze and metal sculptures and large-scale CGI lightboxes by Turkish sculptor Hande Şekerciler and artist duo ha:ar take on uncomfortable questions regarding the increasing digitisation of culture and society, a theme at the heart of the 21st-century experience, through their latest collaborative project Electric Mannerism at London’s JD Malat Gallery.

ecstasy self-portrait No. 1
Bronze with Custom Made Chemical Patina 92 x 112 x 101 cm, 2020. Source: JD Malat Gallery.

Born in 1982 in Bursa, Turkey, Hande Şekerciler studied at Marmara University’s Department of Arts and Crafts Teacher Education from 1998 to 2002 and has worked in figurative sculpture since then. A staunch admirer of Hellenist and Renaissance sculpture, she explores how this ancient art form can be pushed forward through her own experiments with technology and new production techniques. Each sculpture in Electric Mannerism is executed in a custom-made chemical patina, which explains their industrialised, marble-like finish. But it isn’t just the choice of form and material that characterise Şekerciler’s work. Though her sculptures reference the classical forms of antiquity, they bear none of the weight that immediately strikes you upon looking at works like Winged Victory of Samothrace (ca. 190 BC) or Venus de Milo (101 BC) with their heavy draping and contained movement. While classical sculptures typically depict pairs (usually lovers or combatants) or solo figures, Şekerciler’s works are characterised by their introspective character. Most of the sculptures in Electric Mannerism feature two heads and two pairs of hands, almost like there are two personas interacting, but never as separate entities. Şekerciler ensures that there’s always a point of contact between the two. Take, for example, ecstasy No. 2, positioned in the middle of the gallery. Its main figure stands tall, facing the viewer, while a second person floats behind, its head and upper body connected to the former. With the way the two are connected, it’s unclear whether they are pulling away or fusing together. Şekerciler seems to have made a space for her work within the ambiguity between this push and pull, and division and fusion. It’s an ambiguity that arguably marks many people’s experiences in the 21st century, where lines between analogue and digital and personal and social are continuously blurred.

ecstasy No. 2
Bronze with Custom Made Chemical Patina 65 x 44 x 22.5 cm. Ed. 6+1 AP (+ AR edition) 2020. Source: JD Malat Gallery.

ecstasy No. 12
Bronze with Custom Made Chemical Patina 80 x 38 x 30 cm Ed. 6+1 AP (+ AR edition) 2020. Source: JD Malat Gallery.

It makes sense then that a classical art and modern technology admirer like Şekerciler would team up with sound and video-animation-VFX artist Arda Yalkin to explore these issues together as ha:ar. Since its inception in 2018, ha:ar has worked in a variety of media including video, music, generative art, and artificial intelligence, but, in their words, always revolving around questions of, “the civilisation we create, the technology we produce, and conflicts we generate with our way of being.” With invitations from prestigious residency programs like Residency Unlimited and Artists Alliance Inc. in New York as well as 18th Street in Los Angeles, ha:ar has continuously used these platforms to engage a growing audience who resonates with the idea of connecting classical concepts with the experience and technology of the present. Following a whirlwind of exhibitions in Ankara, Venice, Milan, and Istanbul in 2021, Electric Mannerism presented by the JD Malat Gallery marks their entrance into the London art scene. It includes Şekerciler’s sculptures, ha:ar’s lightboxes, and as a response to the current boom in digital art, NFTs of the CGI images in the exhibition.

Impossible Sculptures No. 23

CGI (Computer Generated Image) 200 x 166 cm Lightbox 2021. 3 physical edition + 1 NFT. Photo by Monica Gabrielle Fernandez.

True to its title, Electric Mannerism is laid out rather like a 16th-century Mannerist painting. Upon entering the gallery, one is immediately presented with large-scale lightboxes featuring CGI images (works from ha:ar’s Impossible Sculptures series from 2018) hanging on the walls. Each lightbox is six feet tall, and their imposing scale and borderless displays make them seem like portals opening out into what looks like apocalyptic battle scenes or an episode straight out of Dante’s Inferno. Androgynous digital sculptures (the term coined by ha:ar in their description of the series) emerge from the depths of cosmic landscapes, their bodies contorted as they struggle against each other and even against themselves. In another reference to the Mannerist style of figura serpentinata (serpentine figure), ribbons of smoke form a miasma around the scene, obscuring the bodies of the figures and creating a sense of infinite space. They occupy half of the gallery space as areas of bright, frenetic activity. Positioned opposite each lightbox, Şekerciler’s industrially-finished figurative sculptures hold a silent vigil as they maintain their own exaggerated positions. Unlike the CGI images teeming with movement, these genderless figures stand solitary on their plinths, engaged in their internal struggle.

Impossible Sculptures No. 27
CGI (Computer Generated Image) 200 x 166 cm Lightbox 2022 3 physical edition + 1 NFT. Photo by Monica Gabrielle Fernandez.

While not readily apparent, the similarity in layout begins to emerge when one considers the composition of a Mannerist work like Jacopo de Pontormo’s (1494-1557) Deposition from the Cross (1525-1528). With the characters’ gestures and robes creating a continuous circular movement through the painting, the only momentary points of rest for the eyes are their faces. In seeking out these pockets of stillness in the work, the viewer then becomes aware of each character’s emotional state as they take in their expressions. Likewise, Şekerciler’s sculptures serve as the quieter, introspective moments that allow the viewer a moment to breathe after the swirling movement and contained chaos of the CGI images. The tension that these works convey individually takes on broader implications beyond the personal via the sculptures, and the communal via the lightboxes – and it’s an intentional effect on Şekerciler and Yalkin’s part.

Installation view of Electric Mannerism at JD Malat Gallery. Source: JD Malat Gallery.

The play between tension and rest and frantic activity and solitary introspection finds its resolution in the final work on display, located at the basement level of the gallery. The final installation is a video work by ha:ar, depicting the CGI figures from the lightboxes in an environment totally different from the cosmic battlefields they inhabited above. Gathered around a small fire in the middle of a forest, the figures sit still or move in slow motion, gazing at their hands or off into the distance. The viewer has the distinct impression of witnessing some sort of aftermath, and whether the figures are survivors of societal or personal struggle is entirely up to them. Again, Şekerciler and ha:ar leave that space open for the viewer to inhabit and decide whether this is a fitting resolution to the questions posed upstairs, or whether this work is a much-needed reprieve–a deep breath–before they once again take their positions.                                       

Installation view of Electric Mannerism at JD Malat Gallery. Source: JD Malat Gallery.

Electric Mannerism is on view until 10 February 2022 at JD Malat Gallery in London.

Monica Gabrielle Fernandez

Contributing Writer, MADE IN BED