LONDON.- Iniva (Institute of International Visual Arts) is presenting a new commission by artist Nilbar Güres, for Rivington Place’s front window. This is the first solo presentation of the artist’s work in the UK following her recent inclusion in the 6th Berlin Biennial. Güres, who lives and works between Vienna and Istanbul, produces theatrical tableaux of women, moving between performance and the everyday. Using a range of media including photography, she subverts representations of femininity and cultural identity.

‘Güres declares war on the prevailing relations between the sexes by playful means, her weapons ranging from sewing needles to boxing gloves. In drawings, collages, performances, videos, and photographs she overstates the norms of the majority society, countering them with hybridized enactments of female identity.’ Kolja Reichert, author.

For her new commission at Rivington Place the artist shows a photographic composition in four panels entitled Beekeeper. The central panel features a woman standing in an idyllic orchard setting, her face and body concealed by layers of clothing including a beekeeper’s suit and head scarf. In the surrounding panels, these items of clothing have been cast off and hang from the trees nearby. In a playful and suggestive way, this work explores the complex relationship between female identity and social norms, and how this is expressed through clothing and unclothing.

Previous work by Güres includes a series of unusual photographs, Çlrçlr (2010) produced for the 6th Berlin Biennial for which she invited a diverse group of women to act out a number of scenarios in front of the camera, exploring their identities in the face of social transformation.

In another series of recent works entitled Uberkannte Sportaten (Unknown Sports), (2009) Güres invited women to choose a sport that would act as a metaphor of how they feel about their lives. This culminated in a performance which became the basis of photographs and a film, featuring women of different ages and backgrounds, dressed in costume and involved in various physical activities.