Gülsün Karamustafa (TR)
Quality Pencils and Words of Wisdom
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Gülsün Karamustafa installed “Pencil Vending Machines” in a few hallways and lounges, which dispense wooden, unpainted pencils for 20 cents each. The surface quality of these pencils corresponds with the wooden skin of the Lakeside architecture, which cloaks the high-tech content of the park in a natural mantle. With the anachronistic-looking machines and the simple, traditional working implements they dispense, the artist brings a historicizing aspect into the present- and future-oriented working world of Lakeside Park. Subtly, Karamustafa also evokes questions of values, for instance the relationship between lastingness and innovation, or reflects on the role of tools, techniques and technology in the mediation between human and environment. The pencil vending machines are in addition adorned with maxims from bygone centuries, coaxing those using them to ponder whether these have a timeless validity or are hopelessly outmoded. … >>