Icons of Time 1990

Fusun Onur’s "Icons of Time" invites us into a contemplation of memory, decay, and the passage of time. Onur, who has been a pivotal figure in Turkish contemporary art since the 1970s, creates works that often reflect a personal yet incisive commentary on societal structures. Consider the way Onur uses modest materials to create these cage-like structures. These aren't traditional monuments, but rather fragile constructions that seem to both reveal and conceal. The geometric divisions recall architectural frameworks, but the distressed surfaces hint at abandonment and ruin. The skin-like material stretched within the frames suggests a body or history that is worn and fragmented. Onur’s works encourage us to consider how the past is carried within the present. Think about the stories embedded in these aged surfaces, and what it means to create icons not of triumph, but of temporal fragility. What do these "Icons of Time" say about our relationship to history?