Ahmet Ögüt has been observing facts about Tulum that appears at first in surreal manner, as writer Sezgin Boynik refers “social surrealism” when talking about Ögüt’s artistic practice.
Things which can be observed from the daily social-political life of the community, like the abandoned sign of the name of the town or recently fired policemen after they protested for forty five days to gain basic rights for their own safety. As they need to buy even their own uniforms and equipment, pay their own healthcare and even pay for their own accommodation during the trainings.
Ögüt coded his film using Mayan traditions and language like the Obsidian black stone, which was used by the Mayans to watch the sun eclipses.
The stories in his film are unified around the original letter T which was missing and uses it as a red thread which connects the narrative and creates a poetic twist to the video work.
With an eye for daily encounters and moments of improvisation his works address topics such as structural inequality, state suppression, censorship and forms of resistance. Singular acts of non alignment or collective struggles against militarized powers equally tend to inspire the aesthetic and thematic reflections that occur in Ahmet Öğüt's work just as the way he operates in the institutional ecology surrounding his practice. He works across a variety of different media often picking up on an urban environment. He had solo shows among others at Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven (2015), Chisenhale Gallery, London (2015), Künstlerhaus Stuttgart (2012), Kunsthalle Lissabon, Lisbon (2011) and SALT Beyoglu, Istanbul (2011). He has participated in group shows such as the 11th Gwangju Biennale (2016), Manifesta 11 (2016), “Museum On/OFF” at Centre Pompidou, Paris (2016), the 13th Biennale de Lyon (2015), “Political Populism” at Kunsthalle Wien, the Kyiv Biennial (2015) and many more.
