Artist Ahmet Yiğider’s exhibition “Karınca Yuvası” (Ant Nest) has met art enthusiasts in Ankara. Hosted by CerModern and curated by Dilek Karaaziz Şener, the exhibition offers visitors a unique experience of walking through the spiral structure of a giant sculpture made of metal and fabric, while sensing the scent of ants.
We are sharing with you below the article written by Alistair Hicks, an author and international art curator. This article is part of the book “Sensuality in Sculpture and the Ant Nest”, published parallel to the exhibition of Ahmet Yiğider in CerModern:
The art world is not too keen on polymaths. True, Leonardo is the most famous artist of all time and also a polimath. The twentieth century did not do badly with polymaths such as Man Ray, Duchamp, and Muybridge. Science plays a vital role in the work of contemporaries such as Tomas Saraceno and Tony Cragg. However, the gulf between art and science is growing rather than diminishing. Ahmet Yiǧider’s The Ants Nest, the focus of this exhibition, nonchalantly straddles science and art.
Most artists ignore at least two of our senses. Türkiye is at the forefront of addressing this. Cevdet Erek, an Associate Professor at Istanbul Technical University, pioneered the use of sound in his work. Yiǧiderconfronts smell.
Years ago, well before ants got their sainted, protected status, there was a fashion to keep handmade wooden ants’ nests. They were made of wood and had two lids. One could slide the wooden top off and look through the inner glass roof to see the ants running around doing their Queen’s bidding in a maze. As a nosey, cruel child, I was fascinated by the complicated queendom opening up in front of me. Still, as far as I can remember, I did not smell anything; of course, smell is a powerful trigger of memories.
The Ant Nest of Ahmet Yiǧider is a simplified spiral maze. We walk into a conelike structure. It is not Ariadne who has laid a trail but ants.
Ants have a very sophisticated sense of smell. Much of their communication is achieved by secreting and interpreting pheromones. The sophistication of the ants’ world makes modern-day Theseus question their own emotions about finding a path.
The spiral evokes two other contemporary artworks. In San Giorgio Maggiore, Anish Kapoor tried to create (re-create?) the Holy Spirit in his Ascension, 2011. Sometimes, you saw the rising white mist; sometimes, you didn’t. In contrast, Carsten Holler’s Test Site, 2006, does not attempt to defy gravity. He was celebrating the sheer pleasure and fear of sliding headlong down the spiral. Roger Caillois described the experience as ‘voluptuous panic upon an otherwise lucid mind.’
None of these artworks conjures up Yiǧider’s pursuit of a scent. Smelling the ants is at the heart of this work. Perfume, the wonderfully gruesome novel by Patrick Suskind, shares a sense of obsession with an odour. Still, the book and artwork are poles apart. Unlike Suskind, Yigider is not warning of an apocalyptic, Dionysian end to the world; instead, he tries to take our childlike fascination with busy ants and show that they can teach us much more than we have thought. Perhaps in that way, he would share more with the extraordinary trio of Moscow Conceptualists, Gennady Donskoy, Mikhail Roshal, and Victor Skersis. For one of their first works in the 1970s, they depicted themselves sitting in a Nest. After that, they called themselves the Nest. The Ant Nest might not be so cosy, but it has a similar message: the need to find new ways to work together.
ALISTAIR HICKS
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