Untitled 

Curator: What strikes me about this “Untitled” piece, and so much of Adnan Coker’s work, is its invocation of Modernist principles and yet how distant it feels from the social utopianism that often fueled those early experiments. Editor: Right, "Untitled" by Adnan Coker… It looks like it’s probably from the Modernist period, with those geometric forms against the black background. I get a sense of stillness from it, but also a kind of tension. What do you see in it? Curator: The stark contrast definitely creates that tension. Considering Coker's historical context – the political turmoil in Turkey, the rise of authoritarianism – might this abstraction be a form of resistance? A retreat into pure form as a way of critiquing a society he felt alienated from? Editor: That's interesting. So, you see the abstraction itself as a political statement, almost like a refusal to engage directly with social issues? Curator: Exactly! And think about the implications of calling the work “Untitled.” What does it mean to strip a work of context in such a loaded historical moment? Doesn't that very act become a powerful form of expression? What specific socio-political messages do you see in those geometric forms, or their arrangement in the picture? Editor: I see the way that shapes repeat or act as an "answer" to each other on opposite sides of the image…It might reflect an artist looking for the same themes repeating across history, whether we learn from the past or not. That even if the form is different—round instead of triangular—the core concepts can appear consistently through history and movements. Curator: Beautifully articulated! Perhaps we can view this as a commentary on how history can, even despite ourselves, “rhyme.” Coker's visual vocabulary transcends language and perhaps critiques a sociopolitical rhetoric in ways words simply can't. Editor: That's a totally new way to look at abstract art for me. Thanks!