Untitled 

Curator: This intriguing piece is simply titled "Untitled" by Adnan Coker. What strikes you about it initially? Editor: The monochromatic palette immediately sets a mood of quiet contemplation. Those almost architectural geometric shapes feel symbolic, but I'm unsure what they are alluding to in this moment. Curator: Coker was indeed a modernist, associated with abstract expressionism and color field painting, later embracing hard-edge painting, and you can really see it here. This “Untitled” is deeply informed by the stylistic tenets and historical framework associated with such movements, in many ways representing that trajectory. Editor: And those repeated, stylized forms, could those suggest an underlying language? Are we looking at a representation of order and balance or is there something else beyond those monochrome geometries? It gives me this deep longing...but for what? Curator: Abstraction allowed artists of the mid-20th century to express concepts and feelings difficult to convey literally, so, perhaps it is order that comes from chaos... the feelings produced as society grapples with massive structural change. His engagement with monochrome can also be viewed in light of its function to deliver emotion without visual distraction, inviting that contemplation you noticed earlier. Editor: That’s fascinating! It definitely underscores the feeling that the lack of color isn’t emptiness but, instead, intense concentration, which resonates. The repeated forms, as minimal as they are, establish rhythm that gives the painting this strange sense of space. It's simple and powerful at the same time. Curator: Precisely. Coker was an important figure in Turkish modernism. His move toward simplification embodies the move away from earlier social realist movements that focused explicitly on figuration, embracing this hard-edge-esque form of abstraction to invite viewers to look, feel, and consider broader cultural issues. Editor: Thanks, understanding the movement definitely added something. I will continue to try to find what these figures symbolize and mean to me, the observer. Curator: And perhaps that’s precisely the point: its power lies in this sense of possibility, it reflects a certain feeling.