12 x 18 inch Canson Baryta Prestige print
Edition of 5 (+1 AP) (1 framed, 2 unframed available)
$1,500 framed, $1,200 unframed 
 
Artist Statement: 
 
This print is part of A Minaret for the General’s Wife, an installation that was on view in the artist’s recent solo exhibition at Mercer Union. The project revolves around the story of the Kėdainiai Minaret, an architectural folly located in a small town in Lithuania. In A Minaret for the General’s Wife, the minaret is taken up as a metaphor for the experience of being corporeally out of place, for structures built in locations where they seemingly don’t belong, and for objects brought out of context—in other words; displacement, appropriation, and extractivism. The installation comprises photographs, archival documents, replicas of artefacts, audiovisual material, a curious selection of objects and a book of 12 vignettes from undisclosed origins, all assembled in a web of relational and spatial collage that suggests reconfigurable performative possibilities.
 
Biography:
 
Erdem Taşdelen is a visual artist currently based in Tkaronto/Toronto. His diverse projects bring structures of power into question within the context of culturally learned behaviours, where he often draws from unique historical narratives to address the complexities of current socio-political matters. His work has been shown in numerous exhibitions internationally and across Canada, most recently at venues including Mercer Union, Toronto; Oakville Galleries, Oakville (2021); Blackwood Gallery, Mississauga; AKA artist-run, Saskatoon (2020); Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver; Museum für Gegenwartskunst Siegen (2019); VOX Centre de l’image contemporaine, Montreal (2018); Pera Museum, Istanbul (2017); Museum für Neue Kunst, Freiburg (2016). Taşdelen has been awarded the Joseph S. Stauffer Prize in Visual Arts by the Canada Council for the Arts (2016), the Charles Pachter Prize for Emerging Artists by the Hnatyshyn Foundation (2014), and was long-listed for the Sobey Art Award in 2019.