Azade Köker, 1949

Azade Köker studied ceramics in Sadi Eren’s studio at the İstanbul State Academy of Fine Arts between 1967 and 1971. She then went to the Berlin Academy of Fine Arts on a scholarship, and studied ceramics and industrial design. She worked with the German sculptor Lothar Fischer from 1976 to 1979. After graduating, she set up her own studio in Berlin, where she continues to live and work.

Adding a diversity of materials to an artistic career that began with ceramics, Köker uses different forms of expression to explore identity, belonging, city, representation, nature, and women. In the early 1990s, she produced multipart sculptures that analyze the human condition in the face of life and nature. In later years, she revisited history and the past in site-specific installations. Starting in the 2000s, paper became her central material, and she produced works related to the relationship and balance between body and society. Her most recent works, which concentrate on the triad of city, environment, and nature, highlight nature’s resistance to humans.

“The Landcape of Silence”, depicting skulls in a forest landscape, explores the coexistence of reality and illusion. “Bodily division,” as Köker describes it, turns into a scene of isolation and beauty. The composition also suggests transience and an “end.” Köker chooses to call this unknown future “third nature”—a place where unpredictable events beyond human control may occur. The skulls and the “silent” natural landscape lead us to contemplate cycles that complete themselves, such as death and destruction, and influence and engulf social and cultural structures