Layers of Time (Zamanın Katmanları)

Atatürk Kültür Merkezi in Istanbul is showing Zamanın Katmanları (Layers of Time), a solo exhibition by Erkan Özdilek, from 16 to 29 October 2026. Berna Demirhan curated the show, which is installed in the AKM Müzik Platformu. It brings together seven large-scale works made at different points in a career of more than fifty years. Gold, silver and petroleum are among the materials built into the works.

Özdilek was born in Kayseri in 1959. He started out in academia as a research assistant at Marmara University. He has continued that path at the Faculty of Fine Arts of Maltepe University. He was admitted to the Salzburg academy, has produced projects in Germany and Austria, and has made land art projects in Turkey.

In the exhibition the precious metals and the oil point to a clash between the appetite for material wealth and the worth of a human being. They also stand as witnesses to the violence that runs through human history. The works turn on war and peace, and on the people those events destroy. Cocoons appear in his works. Demirhan likens the artist to a silkworm, patiently spinning his own thread through the layers of time.

The curator also describes him examining the bond between ethics and existence, and reading the cycles of nature through the relation between macrocosm and microcosm. Against settled versions of history, the works put life at the centre. Speaking about the show, Özdilek said that children in Gaza, and hunger wherever it occurs, belong among an artist's concerns. Entry is free, and the space is open from 10am to 7pm.