Tayfun Erdoğmuş: Atlas 1/137.035999

Accompanying Tayfun Erdoğmuş's solo exhibition Atlas 1/137,035999 at Arter, this book brings together texts and images that establish a strong connection with the artist's practice. The medium of paper, which appears in various guises in Erdoğmuş's works, also serves as a catalyst for unexpected encounters within the book. From cover to cover, this publication engages in a dialogue with Erdoğmuş's work, offering a comprehensive insight into the artist's practice through its distinctive visual language.
In her essay "0 – 0 – 0", which opens the book, the exhibition's curator Eda Berkmen explores Erdoğmuş's practice of investigating the relationships between matter, time, nature, knowledge and life through the prisms of wonder, curiosity and a sense of the unknown. Berkmen's text is presented on semi-transparent pages, a reference to the symmetrical structures frequently recurring in Erdoğmuş's works. In "Thinking Through Making: An Essay on Tayfun Erdoğmuş's Assemblages", artist Yağız Özgen recounts his teacher Tayfun Erdoğmuş's work routine first-hand. Özgen characterises this experience as a practice of "thinking through making", in which human labour, plants, chemical processes and other material elements all contribute to the creation of the work. In her text "A Respectful Defiance of Decay, Fading and Death", poet and writer Bejan Matur sets out to explore Erdoğmuş's visual and intellectual universe. Classifying the colours in the artist's palette and the metaphors in his works by reference to the landscape of his childhood, Matur also shares with the reader notes she made in her notebook during her studio visit. Art historian Stefan Körner's essay, "The Search for Perpetuity: When Green Prince Pückler Faced the Folios of Erdoğmuş", focuses on Tayfun Erdoğmuş's works as exhibited at Branitz Park. Referring to the park's founder Prince Pückler's interest in nature, books and Eastern culture, Körner considers the artist's layering and preservation of leaves and other organic materials as a practice of archiving and conservation in response to the transience of nature and the climate crisis. The publication concludes with "The Point" (Nokta), a text by Murathan Mungan from his book Hamamname.
Designed by Umut Altıntaş, the publication features photographs by Hadiye Cangökçe, Orhan Cem Çetin, Eflâtun Derin Çetin and Fırat Rüzgar alongside the texts.
The exhibition Atlas 1/137.03599, on display in Arter's second-floor gallery from 24 June 2026 to 3 January 2027, assembles a wide-ranging selection of works produced during different periods in Tayfun Erdoğmuş's artistic practice, spanning more than four decades, alongside more recent productions. Inviting viewers to consider the relational patterns that constitute life on atomic and cosmic scales, the exhibition traces the visual and intellectual layers that shape Erdoğmuş's process, situated at the intersection of traditional, decorative and fine arts. Working with plants, minerals, handmade papers, chemical and acrylic solutions, Tayfun Erdoğmuş creates a distinctive geography that expands upon the established limits of painting by allowing different states of matter, interactions, transformations and chance events to unfold.