Gizem Karakaş

Gizem Karakaş (b. 1987) is an artist based in Istanbul. She makes photographs, videos, sound pieces, performances and text works. They deal with the struggles, ironies, comedy and poetry of everyday life.

Many works tell semi-fictional stories drawn from her own life and relationships. She builds them from song lyrics, idioms, other people's sentences and scenes from television and film. Her first solo exhibition was Your Last Chance to Visit Studio (2015) at Galerist Studio. It included the video Fuat Eşrefoğlu Eating a Lahmacun, a Turkish take on a film of Andy Warhol eating a burger. We are not Innocent (2019), at Depo in Istanbul, included a video of a couple who speak in Turkish song lyrics. Guilty Pleasures IV (2018) spreads whispered voices across a room.

Karakaş studied at the École des Arts de la Sorbonne in Paris, with a BFA in 2009 and an MFA in 2011. She works in collectives: Medyartiz with Etem Şahin since 2011, HAH from 2017 to 2020, and Hayırlı Evlat since 2017. She took part in the Arter Research Program and held residencies at SAHA Studio and Can Serrat in Barcelona.